TR
a magazine examining the legacy of our 26th President

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TR magazine

February 2003 | Table of Contents
W. Scott Smoot, editor

• Outgrowing Teddy? | page x
  The editor reflects on the changes in his personal view of TR.

• Letters to the Editor | page x

• On-Line Safari: An Internet Search for Theodore Roosevelt | page 9
  Cut through the weeds in this hunt, and you'll find some trophies.

• TR, A to Z: Chronological Overview of His Life | page 7
  A good introduction to an action-packed life.

• TR Speaks about War | page 10
  In a sometimes rocky conversation, President Roosevelt, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, reflects on the value of war and the danger of peace.

• TR and the Miners' Strike: Undermining the Revolution| page x
  This essay considers why TR broke with tradition and with his own beliefs to help a labor union to win its demands.

• Teddy in 'Toon | page x
  A gallery of political cartoons from his career, with explanations by the editor.

• TR at the Movies | page x
  In this fictional story, the author imagines the President at a disastrous movie premiere.

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Outgrowing Teddy?
Editor's Introduction

Dear Reader,

When I was a young teacher, an older colleague was telling me of his conflict with our headmaster. "He idolizes Teddy Roosevelt!" he exclaimed, as if that summed up everything that was wrong with the man. "You'd expect a boy in seventh grade to admire Teddy. But a grown man? That's a sign of arrested development."

At the time, I thought my friend meant just that TR is a kind of comic-book President. He grew from a weak little asthmatic runt to a "bully" athlete. Like the movie hero Indiana Jones, he traveled the world, rode horses into battle, hunted big game in safaris, fought criminals in New York, fought foreign enemies -- and then returned home to write books about his adventures. Oh, yes, he was also President for two terms, bringing America to the forefront of world power. He was in many ways a boy's idea of what a man should be: forceful, adventurous, energetic, commanding, impatient, clever, intimidating, but good-hearted.

I see him a bit differently now that I've passed forty-two years. That was TR's age when he became President, following the assassination of President McKinley. As I gathered his speeches for my "interview" with him, I kept bumping up against TR's contempt for people. He makes sweeping generalizations about people of other cultures, races, and even the other gender. But these were common views of the time, and he stood out for not being a hateful racist: he braved national revulsion when he invited Booker T. Washington to dine at the White House, the first black man to do so. I also felt his contempt for people like me who are at least as interested in arts and ideas as in practicing politics. He himself read a book a day, so he did the "arts and ideas" thing, too, and I can only envy that. Is my mixed feeling about him really just envy, and a sinking feeling that I haven't lived up to his example?

Then I ran across this, from TR: "The Constitution was made for the people, and not the people for the Constitution!" At first, this sounds like good "common sense," another phrase that TR liked. Jesus says something similar when his enemies accused him for healing someone on the Sabbath: "The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath." But Roosevelt is misusing that idea here: the rules of the Constitution were made to protect the people from Presidents and parties that think they don't have to bother with the rules. Written rules and laws provide steady limits to power so that no hot issue, no crisis, no change of public opinion can result in a hot-headed action or some one or some party taking actions that seem like "common sense" to them.

Can a leader elected to enforce the law afford to break it whenever there's a crisis or opportunity? That happens often, and we Americans often approve the results. We liked it when Jefferson bought a continent and then got permission later. Jackson grabbed Florida from Spain, and that seems to have been a good thing. Jackson also threatened to invade South Carolina if it didn't obey federal law; but then he broke treaties and defied the Supreme Court to kick Cherokees out of their homeland. We remember that as the shameful "Trail of Tears." In 1954, President Eisenhower promised to settle the conflict in Vietnam

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peacefully with democratic elections, but then refused to accept the results when it was clear that the Communist side was more popular. In 1964, President Lyndon Johnson used a lie to get authority without limits to finish off the Vietnam conflict, enmeshing America further in a disaster that lasted another ten years. Between Jackson and Johnson, Americans in the West had a tradition of vigilantes who enforced "common sense" law, and communities throughout the country (not just in the South) regularly lynched people whenever a mob decided that it was "common justice" to do so -- bypassing such things as evidence, argument, and a jury trial, because they might not get the results the "people" wanted.

In TR's case, his mind was good, his heart was good, and the results of his actions were good. But his willingness to bypass a limit when it was "common sense" to do so is dangerous, un-American, and, yes, immature. At the low end of that road are the fascists Mussolini and Hitler, who came to power by law and then declared that they would make the laws themselves for the good of the people.

At the time that I'm writing this, President Bush is facing temptations every day to step outside of laws and agreements that the US made when times were calm and heads weren't hot. He may be a President with a good mind for strategy, and goodwill in his heart. He has told us that terrorists and states that support them have created a new threat that he and his administration must face both at home and abroad. Here's hoping that he's not willing to override limits to his authority in the name of "common sense."

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On-Line Safari: An Internet Search for Theodore Roosevelt

W. Scott Smoot
NOTE: The requirements for this article have changed since Mr. Smoot wrote this. It's to be a more general "Search" to include the internet and print sources.

Teddy Roosevelt loved the challenge of a good hunt, but he would have been disappointed in my on-line safari for pages about him. It was too easy!

I was in a hurry for this hunt, because I'd promised my students that this could be done in "about forty-five minutes." Using www.google.com as the search engine, and using the program "wordpad," I searched, copied and pasted, and wrote comments about the sources. Everything I found and wrote in forty-eight minutes is printed after this article under "Sources Cited." Finding and writing everything on that page took exactly forty-eight minutes.

I admit that I was led astray by the very first source that popped up when I typed in "Theodore Roosevelt" on the line at www.google.com. The page published by staff at the White House (www.whitehouse.gov) gives us only a few short paragraphs about Mr. Roosevelt, useful perhaps in writing a time line, but no context for events, no conflicting views, and nothing from the man himself. It does provide the official painted portrait of him.

Having wasted five minutes on this site, I was more choosy about the next one. Here I hit a source truly devoted to TR, in all senses of the word "devoted." The Theodore Roosevelt Association (www.theodoreroosevelt.org) was created by Congress soon after TR's death to keep alive the memory of this President. The site itself contains a time line and biography, quotations from TR, cartoons of him, a collection of photos, and links to other sites that I have yet to explore. I found more in-depth material at other sites, and I was suspicious that this site seemed at first glance to offer no critical views of its subject. Yet it did offer updated reports on upcoming meetings, celebrations, and media events related to TR, and people to contact for more information.

Just like a hunter on a real safari, I had to cut through some weeds to locate my next good find. There were encyclopedia entries, information about a ship named after TR, and national park sites. There was even a fifth grader's school report. Their descriptions all mentioned the same basic information that I'd already found. What I wanted was the Man Himself!

I found him in two places. First, I found TR's personal diaries printed on the web site of the Library of Congress under "Theodore Roosevelt Papers" (http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/trhtml/trhome.html). The Library's collection of

p. 4

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photographs is also on display. I didn't spend time looking at those, because I discovered an on-line company connected to amazon.com called "Bartleby.com." Bartleby is a famous character created by Herman Melville, a "scrivener" whose job it was to copy words in the days before typewriters. This site copies literature of historical or artistic value, whole books, including books by Teddy Roosevelt: his essays about history, about literature, about life in America of his own day, and about his own life. There are also biographies of him that were published shortly after his death by authors who, I presume, saw and spoke with the man himself.

At this writing, I have not yet looked in the Walker Library's subscription services, but I already have my eye on their hard copy of American History magazine, which features on the cover a story about an important decision by TR.

In the last few minutes of my search, with time running out, I saw many other pages that were "tributes" to or else were encyclopedias. I added the words "critical view" to my search words "Theodore Roosevelt." I found unrelated articles about other presidents and about a ship named after him. But further down the list, I found an article on the Bartleby.com site by poet Edgar Lee Masters critical of TR's imperial policy. Educational sites offered critical views of TR with exercises for students who are preparing to debate issues. I plan to search for those later when I begin work on my essay about a decision that TR made.

Sources Cited, with Reviews

listed alphabetically by author or agency

Bartleby.com . Writings By and About Theodore Roosevelt. http://www.bartleby.com/people/RsvltT.html

This presents TR's inaugural address, and excerpts from his own writings about his own career, about literature, nature, history, and America in his own time. There are also excerpts from writings about him all published within ten years of his death. This web site publishes reference works and literature that is in the public domain for use by scholars.

Library of Congress. Theodore Roosevelt Papers. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/trhtml/trhome.html 19 January 2003.

Selections from Roosevelt's personal diaries are viewable at this site, as well as images from the Library's collection of TR photographs.

Theodore Roosevelt Association. http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org . Accessed 19 January 2003.

"Chartered by Act of Congress in 1920, The Theodore Roosevelt Association provides authoritative information on the life and ideals of Theodore Roosevelt." Site contains timeline, biography, quotations, photos, and cartoons. The site also gives news of recent media attention paid to TR. It is clearly devoted to praising the subject.

The White House. http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.html . Accessed 19 January 2003.

Brief time line-style biography, with painted White House portrait of TR.

 

 

 

Note to the students from Mr. Smoot: I started work on the above report at 3:00. It is now 3:48.)

TR, A to Z: A Chronological Overview of His Life

W. Scott Smoot

1858: Wealthy New York Family Raises TR.

His father's wealth helped young Theodore to survive asthma and illness. On doctor's orders, the boy works out in his own private gym, growing from a sickly little boy to a big man on campus at Harvard. He writes his first book and goes to law school.

1882: TR Tries Marriage and Politics

He quits law school, joins the Republican party, and wins election as youngest man ever to join the New York State assembly (twenty-two years old).

1884: TR Suffers Deaths, Retreats West

His mother and his wife die on the same day, two days after the birth of his daughter Alice. TR goes to work on a ranch in Dakota territory, hunts, captures a bandit. He marries a daughter of a family friend, Edith Carow, and publishes more books during the next several years, about his ranch experiences, about politics, and several about American history. Works for the US Civil Service commission.

1895: TR Fights Crime in New York City.

Appointed police commissioner of New York City, TR attracts national attention for his tactics. He creates the police academy to give police target practice and better fitness. He gives late night surprise inspections of police at headquarters and at work. He publishes more books.

1898, July: Secretary of Navy Fights in Spanish-American War

President McKinley appoints TR to be his Secretary of Navy, but when the Spanish-American war begins, TR resigns to be part of the fighting. As a lieutenant colonel, he leads his "Rough Riders" in a much-publicized bloody charge up San Juan hill against Spanish forces in Cuba.

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1898, November: War Hero Wins New York Election

New York voters elect TR governor. Only a year later, the Republican party selects him to be the vice-presidential candidate to run with President McKinley.

1901: TR Replaces the President

President McKinley is shot by a socialist-anarchist and dies eight days later. Roosevelt at forty-three is the youngest man to be President to that time.

1903: TR Engineers Canal in Panama

He actually encouraged a rebellion in Colombia that created the new nation of Panama, and then got a treaty to build and keep a canal there as US territory.

1901-1909: TR "Talks Softly, Carries Big Stick"

That's how he described his own approach to dealing with dangerous animals, but also with possible wars and disorders. He wins the Noble Peace Prize for settling a war between Russia and Japan, and he uses his authority to negotiate labor disputes. He is also noted for creating national parks and the wilderness conservation movement.

1912: Assassin Shoots TR; TR, Unfazed

Disgusted by his own party's performance after he left the White House, TR takes other unhappy Republicans and creates the so-called "Bull Moose" Progressive Party. Giving a speech, he's shot, but he keeps talking. (His glasses case stopped the bullet). In the election, the Republicans come in third, TR second, and the Democrats first with Woodrow Wilson.

1916-1919: TR Coaches USA from the Sidelines

In retirement, TR writes more books. He decides not to accept nomination for Presidency again in 1916. When the Great War (World War I) starts, Roosevelt promotes US involvement in it, and asks President Wilson to be able to lead a volunteer army to fight in France, but Wilson refuses. His youngest son dies in France. TR dies of heart disease in his sleep, January 6, 1919, age 60.

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Sources

Theodore Roosevelt Association. "Time Line." http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org. 19 January 2003.

The White House. "Presidents: Theodore Roosevelt." http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/tr26.html. 19 January 2003.

Note: The short biography from The White House site helped me to select highlights from the Theodore Roosevelt Association's fourteen-page time line.

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TR Talks about War

an interview by W. Scott Smoot

(On February 9, 2003, the interviewer traveled back through time to meet the ex-President in 1918. Mr. Roosevelt had come out of retirement to encourage Americans to fight Germany in the Great War.)

---

WSS: Mr. President, thank you for taking this time to answer questions. Can you explain for me why you, a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize, seem so often to be calling for armed action in the world?
TR: (with a little chuckle) In my own judgement, the most important service that I rendered to peace was the voyage of the battle-fleet around the world, [not the Peace Prize].

WSS: Why? Should the US go out into the world looking for trouble?
TR: In this world, the nation that has trained itself to a career of unwarlike and isolated ease [will] go down before other nations which have not lost the manly and adventurous qualities. If we are to be a really great people, we must strive in good faith to play a great part in the world. We cannot avoid meeting great issues. All that we can determine for ourselves is whether we shall meet them well or ill.

WSS: The US has been neutral during the Great War between Germany and France. So why do you promote sending American soldiers to die for England and France?
TR: The kind of "neutrality" which seeks to preserve "peace" by timidly refusing to live up to our [promises] and to [fight] against such wrong [as the German attack on Belgium] is unworthy of an honorable and powerful people. (His voice rising, his face turning red.) Our present business is to fight, and continue fighting until Germany is brought to her knees!

WSS: What do you think should happen after the US "brings [a country] to her knees?"
TR: (more calmly) Our next business will be to help guarantee the peace of justice for the world at large. [Other countries] pose a yet graver problem. Their population includes halfcaste and native Christians, warlike Moslems, and wild pagans. Many of their people are utterly unfit for self-government, and show no signs of becoming fit.

WSS: That sounds racist to many of your critics.
TR: (sneering with contempt) It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who

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spends himself for a worthy cause. [Now, about other countries' peoples], I have [no] patience with those who [preach] "liberty" and the "consent of the governed" in order to excuse themselves [from playing] the part of men. Their doctrines, if carried out, would make [us] leave the Apaches of Arizona to work out their own salvation. Their doctines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States. [Look at the example of] England's rule in India and Egypt. [It] has been of great benefit to England. . . and even greater benefit to India and Egypt. [M]ost of all, it has advanced the cause of civilization.

WSS: That's the first time you've used the word civilization. The rest of the time, you've used words about fighting and battle in a positive way. Why don't you say more about being peaceful, wise, virtuous, and civilized?
TR: (Pause. Looks with total disgust for the interviewer.) A race must be strong and vigorous; it must be a race of good fighters and good breeders, else its wisdom will come to [nothing] and its virtue be ineffective. (With a mock-feminine tone) [N]o sweetness and delicacy, no love for beauty in art or literature, no capacity for building up [riches] can possibly atone for the lack of the great virile virtues.

WSS: Well, in our time, it looks like there isn't a whole lot of need for fighting. Our neighborhoods are pretty peaceful. Should we go out of our way to find fights?
TR: Yes! A life of [the kind of] peace which springs merely from lack either of desire or of power to strive after great things is [unworthy]. It makes [me] feel half angry and half amused -- (with a sneer) and wholly contemptuous -- to find men [like you] of high social standing -- men who are bent on enjoying life -- saying that they really have not got time to organize political clubs, and to take a personal share in all the important details of practical politics.

WSS: Why are you attacking me? I vote!
TR: [V]oting is the very least of [your] duties!

WSS: Many of my readers are young women. But all your language is about men, manliness, and fighting. I notice also that you once again mentioned peoples' race. Do you mean that only white men can lead worthy lives?
TR: (angry) A healthy state can exist only when the men and women who make it up lead clean, vigorous, healthy lives; when the children are so trained that they shall endeavor, not to shirk difficulties, but to overcome them; not to seek ease, but know how to wrest triumph from toil and risk. The man's work is to dare and endure and to labor; to [support] himself, and to [support] those dependent upon him. The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the momemaker, the wise and fearless mother of many helathy children. [As for race, if an immigrant] does become honestly and in good faith an American, then he is entitled to stand precisely as all other Americans stand, and it is the height of un-Americanism to discriminate against him in any way because of [religion] or birthplace.

WSS: One last question, Mr. President. Your life "in the arena" almost ended in violence when an assassin

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shot you during a speech. Can't you say clearly, for the record, that violence is a bad thing?
TR: I did not care a rap for being shot. It is a trade risk, which every prominent public man ought to accept as a matter of course. [Besides, as I said at the time, blood soaking my coat], "No man has had a happier life than I have led; a happier life in every way."

WSS: Let's conclude on that upbeat note.
TR: (offering hand) No hard feelings? (handshake -- TR crushes the interviewer's fingers and grins) Bully!

Sources

Except for the closing line and for the interjection "Yes," all of Mr. Roosevelt's words in this interview come from the following speeches and writings of Mr. Roosevelt. Brackets indicate editing to fit his essays into a conversational format. The editor has freely mixed sentences from different sources. All descriptions in parentheses are imaginary.

Roosevelt, Theodore. Selections included with "Time Line." The Theodore Roosevelt Association. "Time Line." http://www.theodoreroosevelt.org. 19 January 2003.

Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Duties of American Citizenship, 1883." Speeches by Theodore Roosevelt. Bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/people/RsvltT.html . 19 January 2003.

Roosevelt, Theodore. "The Strenuous Life,1899." Speeches by Theodore Roosevelt. Bartleby.com. http://www.bartleby.com/people/RsvltT.html . 19 January 2003.

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TR and the Miners' Strike:
Undermining the Revolution

by W. Scott Smoot

Click here to download this essay in standard school format

When an assassin's bullet killed the President in 1901, it was easy to imagine a new American revolution as terrible as the one in France a century before. It might be by the overwhelming vote of poor workers, or by violence, or both. The owners of industry and all the politicians who supported them would lose control; all private wealth would become public property.

While Teddy Roosevelt saw revolution as a possible nightmare, a sizable population in the United States dreamed of it. When a leader of the new "Populist" (or "people's") party predicted a workers' paradise in 1890, Roosevelt called him "a well-meaning, pin-headed, anarchistic crank" (Miller 218). Then a deep depression in 1893 brought anarchy. There were riots, a march on Washington by jobless men, and a swell of popularity for the Populist party. In the next election, that party won twenty-six states to twenty-one over Roosevelt's Republican party. The Republican candidate William McKinley won anyway, with votes from the most populous states, but it had taken bosses' arm-twisting for votes: They had threatened to close factories and put their men out of work if the Populists won (Salvatore 161). When the Populist Party lost, that helped hard-core revolutionists to attract members to the Socialist party, doubling membership in 1902 and again in 1904 (Salvatore 221).

Yet the assassin of McKinley had accidentally put Teddy Roosevelt in the White House. Roosevelt's decision to get involved with the miners' strike of

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1902 may have had the long-term effect of undermining the dream -- or nightmare -- of a socialist revolution.

What was the conflict?

On one side of the conflict were miners in Pennsylvania. Miners' unions had combined as the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA) and had elected a thirty-three year old spokesman, John Mitchell. Mitchell asked politely for work days to be shortened from twelve to eight hours. He claimed that bosses' method of weighing the coal to determine wages was unfair. He asked for safer working conditions. Mitchell might have complained more, about the way workers had no choice but to get their clothing, doctors' care, housing, and food from their bosses. As their weekly wages barely covered those necessities, workers were trapped in debt, unable to leave for better work if they'd wanted to try. An extreme example was the twelve-year-old boy whose father had died in an unsafe mine. For four years, the boy worked twelve hour shifts six days a week, but the company deducted all his wages of forty cents a day to pay off the father's debt to the company (Miller 370). The socialists among the miners wanted stronger demands and stronger threats from Mitchell (Salvatore 209). But Mitchell wisely attracted public support, and Roosevelt's approval, by dressing well, by steering clear of socialistic demands and violence (Saunders 42).

On the other side were the owners of the different companies who combined to face this threat to their businesses. Their most prominent spokesman was George Baer, a man who had risen up from poverty himself, who saw no reason that others couldn't do the same (Saunders). Baer refused to give an inch to the UMWA, or even to communicate with John Mitchell.

There was a third side to this conflict, the public. They made this conflict in Pennsylvania into a crisis for the nation. Household heating systems in the densely populated industrial North depended on coal. As temperatures dropped outside, the conflict heated up, and the young President heard one of his advisers plead with him to do something, or at least "to appear to do something," or the Republicans might be blamed for everyone's

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discomfort (Miller 372). Roosevelt agreed, writing in a letter that "the public at large will visit upon our heads responsibility for the shortage in coal" (Saunders).

Why would TR have stayed uninvolved?

But Roosevelt had at least two very strong reasons to do nothing at all. First, there was no law and no precedent for him to do anything unless violence erupted. Before him, Presidents Hayes and Cleveland had brought out troops to keep order during strikes in 1877 and 1894 (Saunders), but not to influence the negotiations. The Constitution gives a President legal authority to use force "to preserve [and] protect" the Union and to "ensure domestic tranquillity" if there's widespread violence. But the fourth amendment guarantees the security of private property unless there's "warrant" of a crime. Congress might pass laws to "regulate commerce," but no laws were being broken by the mine owners. So, the mine owners' business was no business of the President.

The other reason is a deep American feeling against the very idea of laborers' uniting to demand a better living. Roosevelt believed firmly in laissez-faire, a French phrase that means "leave it alone," meaning, the economy will work out its own problems if the government leaves it alone (Miller 271). Of course, Roosevelt learned that at Harvard, along with the other sons of America's elite families. But even Eugene Debs, a train worker reared by socialistic parents, began his political career by calling for fellow laborers to improve themselves by hard work, to cooperate with the owners. He expected bosses to respect and reward them, saying, "Well done, my good and faithful servants" (Salvatore 30). Though Debs claimed that America was started by a kind of union strike against the British (81), he held to the American ideal of the individual working man providing for his family. He didn't like the socialist idea of unifying the working class against the upper class (61). Even low-paid American workers believed that low wages and long hours were a hard but necessary price to pay for progress. In 1886, when policemen died putting down a strike in Chicago's Haymarket Square, Roosevelt boasted in a letter that his own ranch hands "work longer hours for no greater wages than many of the strikers; but they are Americans through and through," meaning that they were "more furiously angry" at the strikers than even Roosevelt himself (Miller 183).

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Not only were labor unions seen to be un-American, they were also seen to be standing in the way of progress and happiness for the whole human race. Charles Darwin's scientific work on the origins of animal species in the mid-nineteenth century had been taken up and re-interpreted by non-scientists. In a popular book, multi-millionaire Andrew Carnegie connected poor workers to Darwin as if they were dinosaurs or dodo birds, a species unfit to survive. Carnegie wrote in 1889, "The price which society pays for the law of competition... is great [and it] may be sometimes hard for the individual [but] it is best for the race, because it ensures the survival of the fittest in every department." (Carnegie 146-7). Roosevelt echoed this idea, calling the success of the rich and the failure of the poor a "natural law" (Miller 143). The leading mine owner George Baer stated the same thing in religious terms, writing in a letter to a newspaper that "God in His wisdom" gave ownership to "Christian men," not the "labor agitators" (Miller 171).

Of course, the other side could drag Darwin and religion in on their sides just as well. A socialist in 1905 would write, "Socialism is either an evolutionary science or it is no science at all" (Salvatore 220). Defending the violence of some socialist men, lawyer Clarence Darrow said, "I don't care... how many brutalities they are guilty of. I know their cause is just.... Through brutality and bloodshed and crime has come the progress of the human race" (Darrow).

TR's theory meets "common sense"

While Roosevelt never lost his faith that competition pushed progress, he allowed personal exceptions to that rule when he saw the victims of injustice face to face.

This happened to him early in his political career, when he was a young lawmaker in the New York state legislature. He opposed a bill to improve living and working conditions for employees of cigar companies. Such a bill would "prevent a [business owner] doing as he wished . . . with his own property" (Miller 144). Roosevelt argued against the bill, not just because of his faith in laissez-faire competition, but also because he distrusted labor leaders in general. He called them "professional agitators" who made comfortable careers

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by bribing poor workers with promises of getting higher wages for less work (Miller 143). This was a common suspicion. Even Woodrow Wilson, later a pro-Labor President, said in 1900 that labor leaders were using unions just to grab power for themselves (Miller 371).

Roosevelt made a complete turnaround after a visit to the cigar-making work site. Labor leader Samuel Gompers invited his Republican opponents to see it for themselves, but only Roosevelt accepted the challenge. Gompers had warned him what he'd see, and Roosevelt had denied that such horrors were possible. He saw three immigrant men, two women, and several children living and working in one room, "tobacco [piled] everywhere, alongside foul bedding, and in a corner where there were scraps of food." They worked all day and late into the night to just to afford to stay where they were, never getting exercise, never learning English, never able to improve their lives. "My first visits [there]," he later wrote,

. . . made me feel that, whatever the theories might be, as a matter of practical common sense I could not conscientiously vote for the continuance of the conditions which I saw.... These conditions rendered it impossible for the families of the tenement-house workers to live so that the children might grow up fitted for the exacting duties of American citizenship (Miller 144).

He now became Gompers's partner and he pushed the bill through, only to see it struck down by judges of the State Court of Appeals. He said those judges "knew legalism, but not life" (145).

So as President, his mind was already open to the idea that, in real life, for common sense's sake, he might have to step outside of law -- the laws of economics that he believed in, and the laws of the Constitution that he was sworn to uphold. During his first meeting with Baer and Mitchell at the White House, he was once again face-to-face with "common sense." For the sake of the freezing public, for the sake of the miners who needed what he called "a square deal," and for the sake of saving the Republican party from defeat in the next election, the owners should accept recommendations from an outside negotiator. But the owners, led by Baer,

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refused even to look at Mitchell in the room. Baer instead lectured Roosevelt -- who was temporarily in a wheelchair because of a traffic accident -- on the President's duty to stop the miners' union. "I would have ... chucked him out of that window," he wrote later, if not for the dignity of his office, and the wheelchair (Saunders 46). That meeting ended in failure, but within the week, the President had found a way to push the owners to accept his interference. He made a threat, which may have been a bluff, that he would send troops in to take over the mines from owners and workers both, to ensure a supply of coal for the public. He would do this, he said, if the owners didn't let a five-man commission study their businesses and order necessary reforms. When a congressman told Roosevelt that he had no authority from the Constitution to do any of this, the President grabbed his coat and yelled at him, "The Constitution was made for the people, and not the people for the Constitution" (Miller 377)!

In the short term, Roosevelt won everything. The owners agreed to Roosevelt's commission, even when he put a labor leader on it; the miners went back to work, and they got their pay increase and work condition improvements; the public got their coal; the Republicans won big in the next election; Roosevelt's popularity shot high. Among leading Republicans and business owners, he was viewed with suspicion from then on.

In the long term, Roosevelt may have won, too: The Socialist party's membership peaked in the next year, then declined. Roosevelt may have been correct to feel that, had he not acted, the result would have been "radical and extreme democracy"(Miller 378) or "violence and possible social war" (Saunders 47). At a critical moment in American history, when pressure was building to overthrow belief in the free market economy, Roosevelt gave a little to save a lot.

 

Sources Cited

Carnegie, Andrew. "The Talent for Wealth." In Voices of Freedom: Sources in American History. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1992.

Darrow, Clarence. Excerpts from Darrow's Summation in the Haywood Trial. Famous Trials Homepage. http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haywood/HAYWOOD.HTM. Accessed 3/15/2003.

Miller, Nathan. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life. New York: William Morrow, Inc., 1992.

Roosevelt, Theodore. Speech at Osawatomie, Kansas, August 1910. In History of the United States. Richard N Current and Gerald J. Goodwin. New York: Knopf, 1980.

Salvatore, Nick. Eugene V. Debs: Citizen and Socialist. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1982.

Saunders, Stan. "Teddy in the Middle." American History magazine. February 2003.

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