Seldom, in times of peace, is the personality of a single individual so important as that of Theodore Roosevelt during the early years of the twentieth century. At the time of his accession to the presidency, he lacked a month of being forty-three years old, but the range of his experience in politics had been far beyond his age. In his early twenties, soon after leaving Harvard, he had entered the Assembly of the state of New York. President Harrison had made him Civil Service Commissioner in 1889, and he had been successively President of the Board of Police Commissioners of New York City, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, an important figure in the war with Spain, and Governor of New York. He had been known as a young man of promise--energetic, independent and progressive--and in addition to his political activities he had found time to write books on historical subjects, see something of life on a western ranch and develop a somewhat defective physique into an engine of physical power.

Brimming with energy, nimble of mind, impetuous, sure of himself, quick to strike, a fearless foe, frank, resourceful, audacious, honest, versatile-- Roosevelt possessed the qualities which would challenge the admiration of the typical American. One who frequently saw him at work described thus the way in which he prepared a message to be sent to the Senate:

"He storms up and down the room, dictating in a loud and oratorical tone, often stopping, recasting a sentence, striking out and filling in, hospitable to every suggestion, not in the least disturbed by interruption, holding on stoutly to his purpose, and producing finally, out of these most unpromising conditions, a clear and logical statement, which he could not improve with solitude and leisure at his command."

The breadth of his interests, the democratic character of his friendships-- for he was equally at home with blue-stocking, politician, cowboy and artisan--his complete loyalty to his friends and his disregard of conventionalities gave him a grip upon popular favor that had not been duplicated since the days of Andrew Jackson, unless by Lincoln. The effectiveness of so compelling a personality was in no way diminished by Roosevelt's possession of what a journalist would call "news sense." He was made for publicity; he had an instinct for the dramatic. His speeches were removed from mediocrity by his evident sincerity, his abounding interest in every occasion at which he was called upon to talk and the phrases that were half victories which he coined almost at will. "Mollycoddle," "muckraking," "the square deal," "the big stick" became familiar idioms in the vernacular of politics and the street. The political leadership of Roosevelt rested mainly upon his personal prestige and upon his attributes as a reformer. With unerring prescience he chose those political issues which would make a wide appeal and which could be pressed quickly to a successful conclusion. His complete integrity saved him from mere opportunism; his ruggedly practical commonsense saved him from that combination of high purpose and slight accomplishment which has characterized many other reformers.

No estimate of the deficiencies in Roosevelt's personality and leadership would be agreed upon at the present time. In some cases--as in the realm of international relations--only the future can decide whether he was a prophet or a chauvinist; in all cases, opinions have differed widely, for Roosevelt could scarcely explore a river, describe a natural phenomenon or urge a political innovation without thereby arousing a controversy in which his friends and his opponents would participate with equal intensity. His identification of himself with his purposes was as complete as that of Andrew Jackson; opposition to his proposals was reckoned as opposition to him as an individual. Like many leaders of the fighting type, he was frequently weak when judging the motives of those who disagreed with him. One of his admirers declared that his greatest political defect was an impatience of any interval between an expressed desire for an act and the accomplishment of the deed itself--an inability to stand through years of defeat for the future success of an ideal. A keener and equally sympathetic critic dubbed him the "sportsman" in politics--honest, hard-hitting, but playing the issue which had an immediate political effect.

At the outset of his administration Roosevelt was apparently an adherent of the prevailing Republican creed--protective tariff, gold standard, imperialism, laissez faire and the rest. His first official utterance after becoming President was an indication that he would continue unbroken the policies of his predecessor, and to this end he insisted that the cabinet should remain intact.[1] His foreign policy was aggressive; his interest in the military and naval establishments real and constant. Roosevelt was more venturesome than McKinley, and more ready to experiment with new ideas. He took up the duties of his position with an unaffected zest and enthusiasm; he looked upon the presidential office as an exhilarating adventure in national and even international affairs. As time went on, therefore, it became more and more evident that he was prepared to play a big role on a great stage. Moreover, few doubts concerning the constitutional powers of the executive position seem ever to have assailed him. Whatever may have been his theory at the outset of his presidency, he came eventually to believe that the executive power was limited only by the specific restrictions and prohibitions appearing in the Constitution, or imposed by Congress in laws which it had constitutional authority to pass. The scope which this theory presented for the exercise of his energetic originality is evident when contrasted with the theory of his predecessors, who had, in times of peace, held to the belief that the executive possessed only the powers specifically designated by the Constitution.

Not until some future time, when the events of the early twentieth century are better understood, will it be possible to judge accurately the value of President Roosevelt's regime in its relation to the control of railroads and corporations. There can be no doubt, however, that one of the most serious problems that faced the American people during that time was the position which the government ought to occupy toward the business interests of the nation. Not only were the railroads and the great corporations the center of the economic life of the people, but their social and political effects were momentous.

Neither the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 nor the Sherman Anti-trust law of 1890, it will be remembered, had accomplished what had been expected of them. The Interstate Commerce law had met with grave obstacles in the courts; the Sherman act had been seldom invoked by the federal executive, and in the most prominent case, United States v. E.C. Knight Co., the government had failed to obtain the decision it desired. Government regulation seemed like a broken reed.[2] A few cases, however, had indicated the possibility that strength might be discovered in the law. In United States v. the Trans-Missouri Freight Association, the Supreme Court had declared that the Anti-trust act applied to railroads and that it forbade agreements among them to maintain rates; two years later, in 1899, the Court pronounced illegal a combination of pipe manufacturers in the Middle West, on the ground that its result was to restrain interstate commerce.

Roosevelt, like Bryan and La Follette, had been groping his way to an understanding of the importance of the new problem. During his term as Governor of New York he had clashed with the older political leaders when he supported an act looking to the heavier taxation of railway franchises. The first recommendations in his message to Congress on December 3, 1901, concerned the subject of the relation of government and industry. The accumulation of wealth in recent years in the United States, he asserted, had been due to natural causes, and much of the antagonism aroused thereby was without warrant. Nevertheless grave evils had attended the process: overcapitalization was one; untruthful representations concerning the value of the properties in which business asked the public to invest was another. Such evils should be attacked; with extreme care, to be sure, but also with resolution. Combination and concentration, he thought, should be supervised and, within reasonable limits, controlled. The remedies which the President suggested were simple: in the interest of the public the government should have the right to inspect the workings of organizations engaged in interstate commerce; because of the lack of uniformity in corporation legislation within the states, the federal government should so extend its power as to include supervision of corporations; a Department of Commerce and Industries should be established, whose head should be a cabinet officer; the Interstate Commerce law should be amended; railway rates should be just, and should be the same to all shippers alike, and the government should be the agent to provide a remedy to this end.

The enthusiastic reception accorded the message by the press indicated that one or another of its numerous recommendations met with approval. The effect on Congress, however, of the portion dealing with interstate commerce was represented by a cartoon in the New York World. Uncle Sam was there portrayed stowing away for later attention a bundle of manuscript labelled "President's Message 1901. 30,000 words," while he smilingly remarked "When I git time!" But Roosevelt was not content to let the matter drop, and in the following summer he took the unusual step of carrying his message directly to the people. In the New England states first, and later in the West, he declared his creed on the federal regulation of industry. The effectiveness of the campaign was increased by the moderation of the President, by his increasing popularity and by the many telling phrases, with which he enforced his main thesis. The Sherman act looked less like a broken reed when the chief executive of the nation declared: "As far as the anti-trust laws go they will be enforced ... and when (a) suit is undertaken it will not be compromised except upon the basis that the Government wins." Here and there objection was raised that the program was not sufficiently definite; now and then a critic hazarded a conjecture that Roosevelt had not consulted the leaders of his party; but in the main he succeeded in obtaining a sympathetic hearing. At this juncture the coal strike of 1902 gave him one of those fortunate opportunities which were commonly referred to as a part of "Roosevelt's luck." With no uncertain hand he seized the opportunity which chance presented.

Before 1899, there had been no organization of the anthracite miners with sufficient strength to force any changes in the conditions under which the men performed their work. During that year the United Mine Workers of America began to send organizers into the Pennsylvania region. In 1900 the men struck, but an agreement was reached with the operators and work was resumed. The settlement, however, was not satisfactory to either side, and in 1902 the workers asked for a conference. The presidents of the coal companies and the coal-carrying railroads replied that they were always ready to meet their own employees but would have no dealings with a general labor organization. Smaller causes of unrest were the demand for more pay, shorter hours, and payment for coal by weight instead of by the car, but the fundamental issue was the recognition of the union--the workmen insisting on collective bargaining, the operators refusing it. The men were helpless except as a union; the roads were sure of keeping the upper hand if they dealt with the men individually or in small groups. When attempts at conference failed, the miners struck and from May 12 until October 23 nearly 147,000 of them remained idle. The total loss to miners and operators was nearly $100,000,000.

Since the Pennsylvania fields were almost the sole source of supply for anthracite coal, discomfort was soon felt in the North and West, and as the cooler weather came on, suffering became acute and public feeling bordered on panic. A winter without hard coal could hardly be contemplated without grave misgivings. Popular opinion, meanwhile, went increasingly to the side of the miners. The refusal of the operators to confer, and the propriety of the conduct of the workmen made a wide impression that was favorable to the union. Moreover, George F. Baer, President of the Philadelphia and Reading Company, spoke of himself and his associates in a letter to a correspondent as those "Christian men to whom God in His infinite wisdom has given the control of the property interests of the country." The remark was widely quoted and generally looked upon as evidence of a selfish and uncompromising individualism.[3] The strike having now become a matter of national importance, President Roosevelt requested the operators and representatives of the miners to meet him in Washington, October 3. At this conference the spokesman of the railroads refused mediation, while the leader of the United Mine Workers, John Mitchell, proposed arbitration and pledged the workers to accept it.

After the refusal of the operators to accept the President's conciliatory offer, he decided to apply pressure. He obtained the consent of Grover Cleveland to act as chairman of a commission of investigation and determined to seize the mines by military force, if necessary, operate them as a receiver and await the report of his commission. In some way, which can not now be indicated with certainty, the operators were influenced to accept mediation, and the President appointed a commission with Judge George Gray as chairman.[4] The miners immediately returned to work, coal began again to flow to the North, and public rejoicing was extreme. The President's Commission at once repaired to Pennsylvania, heard 558 witnesses, visited the mines, and inspected machinery and the homes of the miners. It concluded that neither side was completely in the right, and therefore made an award that satisfied some of the complaints of both parties. In the history of the relation between the federal government and the business interests of the nation, the anthracite strike of 1902 is of marked significance. The operators had given evidence of a failure to understand that their business so concerned the nation that the interest of the public in it must be heeded. The successful outcome enhanced the prestige of the government and of the President, and an example of the need of greater control over corporations received wide publicity at the precise moment when the general subject was uppermost in the popular mind.

The first legislative evidence of the result of the agitation for the more effective regulation of industry was an act approved on February 11, 1903, by which any suit brought in a Circuit Court by the United States government under the Sherman Anti-trust act or the Interstate Commerce law, could be given precedence over other cases at the desire of the Attorney-General. Three days later a law was passed which established a Department of Commerce and Labor, whose chief was to be a cabinet officer. Included in the Department was a Bureau of Corporations headed by a Commissioner, who was authorized to investigate the organization and conduct of the business of corporations. Within another five days the Elkins Act had been passed--a law designed to eliminate rebating. Despite the Interstate Commerce act, the practice of rebating had continued. Agreement was general that railroad men who, in other respects, were perfectly scrupulous, commonly violated the law in order to get business in competition with their rivals. Among the railroad men who had violated the law but who deprecated the necessity of so doing, was Paul Morton, president of the Santa Fe system. Morton volunteered to assist Roosevelt in stamping out the evil, and the Elkins law was designed to aid in this process. It forbade any variation from published rates, made both a corporation and its agents punishable for offenses against the law, prohibited the receiving of rebates as well as giving them, and made the penalty for failure to observe the provisions of the Act a fine of one thousand to twenty thousand dollars. Furthermore, during February, 1903, Congress appropriated $500,000 to be expended under the direction of the Attorney-General for the better enforcement of the anti-trust and interstate commerce laws.

In 1903, likewise, was initiated an important judicial proceeding in the direction of the enforcement of the Sherman law. The Great Northern Railway Company and the Northern Pacific Railway Company operated parallel competing lines of road extending from the region of Lake Superior to the Pacific Coast. An attempted consolidation of the two had been declared illegal under the statutes of the state of Minnesota. On November 13, 1901, under the leadership of two of the foremost railway magnates of the nation, J.J. Hill and J.P. Morgan, there had been organized the Northern Securities Company, to purchase and control at least a majority of the shares of the capital stock of the two lines of railway. In this way the two roads would be operated as one, their earnings pooled, competition between the two eliminated and a virtual consolidation effected. On the advice of the Attorney-General, Philander C. Knox, President Roosevelt directed that proceedings be instituted against the holding company--an act that seemed almost useless in view of the decision of the Supreme Court in the Knight Case. But the decision in the Northern Securities Case, handed down in 1904, was a surprise. By a vote of five to four the Court declared the company a combination in restraint of trade, and therefore illegal under the Sherman act, and enjoined any attempt on its part to control the affairs of either of the two railways.

Nineteen hundred and four, the year of the presidential election, found Roosevelt in a strong position. His success in handling the coal strike and his energetic preparations for the crusade against trust evils had struck a responsive chord in the popular mind. Late in 1903 he had announced to Congress that frauds had been discovered in the post office and land office, and urged the appropriation of funds for the prosecution of the offenders. The result was a house-cleaning which involved the conviction of many officials, including two United States senators. Roosevelt's popularity became greater than ever.

It was to be expected, however, that some opposition would appear to the nomination of Roosevelt for a continuation of his term of office, and it was around the forceful Mark Hanna that the opposition began gradually to center. Hanna had attained remarkable influence as a senator, was highly trusted by the business interests and was popular among southern Republicans. But his death in February, 1904, effectively ended any opposition to Roosevelt, since it was then too late to focus attention upon any other competitor. The Republican nominating convention, therefore, which met in Chicago on June 21, lacked any semblance of a contest, and the President was renominated without opposition. The platform was of the traditional sort. The history of the party was approved; its achievements in giving prosperity to the country and peaceful government to the island possessions were recounted; the protective tariff, the gold standard, an isthmian canal, the improvement of the army and navy, the continuation of civil service reform and a vigorous foreign policy,--on all these the party utterance was that of other days. Surprisingly little was said upon the subject of the regulation of corporations. The few steps already taken were approved, but as to the future, the platform was almost colorless:

"Combinations of capital and of labor are the results of the economic movement of the age, but neither must be permitted to infringe upon the rights and interests of the people. Such combinations, when lawfully formed for lawful purposes, are alike entitled to the protection of the laws, but both are subject to the laws, and neither can be permitted to break them."

The Democratic convention met in St. Louis on July 6, and the excitement which marked its proceedings compensated for the lack of interest at the Republican meeting. As drawn up by a sub-committee of the Committee on Resolutions, the platform was, in many of its planks, a distinct return to the programs of the days before 1896. It urged a reduction of the tariff, generous pensions and civil service reform, together with the enforcement of the anti-trust laws and the popular election of senators. In the main, it was devoted to a condemnation of the existing Republican administration, which it denounced as "spasmodic, erratic, sensational, spectacular and arbitrary." It also contained a paragraph declaring that the question of the money standard had ceased to be an issue, on the ground that recent discoveries of gold had enormously increased the supply of currency in the country. Bryan did not approve. With characteristic energy he threw himself into an all-night fight in the Committee in behalf of a silver plank. His defeat indicated that the convention was in the hands of his opponents and the platform as adopted contained no reference to the currency.

The delegates had, in fact, come to the meeting with the distinct purpose of returning to the "safe and sane" democracy of Grover Cleveland. To that end, the platform was to drop the silver issue and Bryan was to be replaced by a more conservative leader. The radical forces centered their strength upon William R. Hearst, but they were in a distinct minority, and in the end, the Cleveland wing succeeded in nominating Judge Alton B. Parker of New York. As soon as he was notified of his nomination, Judge Parker telegraphed to the convention that he regarded the gold standard as irrevocably established and that he must decline to be the party candidate if his attitude on the currency was unsatisfactory to the delegates. Thereupon the convention replied that the platform was silent on the question of a monetary standard because it was not regarded as a campaign issue. Parker was satisfied with the reply, and the last word was written upon a question that had disturbed politics for many years.

The succeeding campaign was unusually listless. Parker did not inspire enthusiasm, although a man of undoubted integrity and ability, and the personality of Roosevelt was the controlling force. Only at the close of the canvass did a passing interest appear in some charges made by Parker. He called attention to the fact that Secretary Cortelyou of the Department of Commerce and Labor had been charged with the duty of examining the acts of corporations and had then resigned to become chairman of the National Republican Committee. Parker insinuated that Cortelyou was using information about corporate misdoing, which he had discovered, in order to force large contributions from the business interests. He also declared that the Republican campaign was being financed by the corporations. Roosevelt did not answer the charges until three days before the election, and then he asserted that the statements made by Parker were "unqualifiedly and atrociously false." Later investigations have shown that in general Parker was correct in his complaint as to the activities of the corporations, although he would have found difficulty in proving his charges in detail. The same investigations, however, indicated that some of the Democratic campaign fund had come from similar sources.

[image: Election of 1904 by Counties]

The election resulted in the choice of President Roosevelt, whose popular vote was 7,600,000 to Parker's 5,000,000. In the more populous sections of the country, which were normally Republican, the party vote scarcely exceeded that of 1900, but in the Far West, the increases were notable. Beyond the Mississippi River, except in the southern states, hardly a county gave a majority for Parker, showing that the region which had gone to Bryan in 1896 was substantially solid for Roosevelt. Indeed, the policies to which Roosevelt was committed bore a greater resemblance to the principles of Bryan than to the laissez faire philosophy to which many important Republican leaders adhered. Despite their dissent, however, his victory in the election was so overwhelming that he could carry out his program with the irresistible pressure of public opinion behind him.

During the campaign year, the Commissioner of Corporations was busy investigating the activities of the so-called "beef-trust," and a suit against the combination was pressed to a successful conclusion in January, 1905. In its decision in the case (Swift & Company v. United States), the Supreme Court dwelt at some length on the charges made against the Company. A dominant proportion--six-tenths--of the dealers in fresh meat in the United States were alleged to have agreed not to bid against one another in the live-stock markets; to restrict the output of meat in order to raise prices; to keep a black-list; and to get illegal rates from the railroads to the exclusion of competitors. To the objection of the members of the trust that the charges against them were general and did not set forth any specific facts, the Court retorted that the scheme alleged was so vast as to present a new problem in pleading. The decision was against the combination, which was ordered to dissolve. The publicity given to the case and to the methods of the meat packers assisted in the passage of legislation requiring government inspection of meats.

An unexpected phase of the Sherman act appeared in 1908, in the case Loewe v. Lawlor. The American Federation of Labor, acting through its official organ, had declared a boycott against D.E. Loewe, a hat manufacturer of Danbury, Connecticut. The Court decided that a combination of labor organizations designed to boycott a dealer's goods was a combination in restraint of trade and that the manufacturer might maintain an action against the Hatters' Union for damages.[5]

In the meantime, another prominent trust had played into the hands of the administration. The American Sugar Refining Company imported large amounts of raw sugar, on which it paid tariff duties. In November, 1907, it was discovered that the Company had tampered with the scales on which the incoming sugar was weighed, in such a manner as to defraud the government. In the resulting legal actions, over $4,000,000 were recovered from the Company, criminal prosecutions were carried on against the officials and employees, and several of them were convicted. The close relation between the railroads and the great corporations was indicated when the Standard Oil Company of Indiana was brought into court on the charge of receiving rebates on petroleum shipped over the Chicago and Alton Railroad. The decision by Judge K.M. Landis was that the Company was guilty on 1,462 separate counts and must pay a fine of $29,240,000. On appeal to a higher court the case was dismissed, partly on a question concerning the meaning of the law.

The efforts of Roosevelt in the direction of control of the railroads resembled his activities in relation to industrial combinations. A variety of circumstances had combined to arouse a popular demand for the reinforcement of existing legislation: the discovery of grave abuses in connection with the transportation of petroleum; the continuance of favoritism and rebating, together with increasing public knowledge of their existence; the rise in freight rates; and the consolidation of the railroads into a few large systems, with the accompanying concentration of power in the hands of a small number of persons. In his public speeches and in his messages to Congress in 1904 and 1905, President Roosevelt made himself the spokesman of the popular will. In particular--and it was here that the conflict was destined to rage--the President called for the transfer to the Interstate Commerce Commission of the power to determine the rates which the roads should be allowed to charge. The project was not a new one, having already taken shape in previous years, but at no time was Congress prepared to pass definite legislation. The reaction of the railroads to the rising demand was energetic. A costly propaganda was entered upon designed to prove to the public that the roads should be let alone. A powerful lobby worked insistently upon Congress, first to prevent action and later, when action was seen to be inevitable, to weaken the legislation wherever possible. The railroad's campaign of popular education, however, helped to convince the popular mind that new laws were needed, and came coincidently with the disclosures of corporate mismanagement and wrong-doing. The outcome was the Hepburn Act of June 29, 1906.

Its major provisions were five in number. It enlarged the scope of the Interstate Commerce Act so as to include control of express and sleeping car companies, pipe lines, switches, spur tracks and terminals. Free passes, which had hitherto been productive of much favoritism and the source of political corruption, were strictly forbidden, except to a few specified classes. The "commodity clause" forbade railroads to carry goods, other than timber, in which they had an interest, except such as they were going to use themselves. This provision was designed mainly to check the activities of those companies which owned both coal mines and railroads, and which used their advantageous position to crush independent operators. Its force, however, was largely nullified by subsequent decisions of the courts. The Hepburn law also enabled the Commission to prescribe the methods of book-keeping which the roads must follow, to call for monthly or special reports and to employ examiners who should have access to the books of the carriers. The roads were even denied the right to keep any records except those approved by the Commission. These drastic features of the law were due in part to the practices of certain roads which hid away corrupt expenditures in their accounts in such a manner that detection was almost impossible. Most important, however, among the provisions of the Act was that in relation to rate-making, which not only empowered the Commission to hear complaints that rates were unjust or unreasonable, but even enabled it to determine what would be a just and reasonable charge in the case, and to order the carrier complained of to adhere to the new rate. The rate-making section of the Hepburn Act immediately resulted in a large increase in the number of complaints entered by shippers against the carriers. Previously, few cases had been taken to the Commission--only 878 in eighteen years--because relief was seldom obtained and then only at great cost in time and money. Under the new law more than 1500 cases were entered within two and a half years, and several thousand others were informally settled out of court.

The example of the federal government in adopting restrictive railway legislation was followed by the states, on a nation-wide scale. Hours of labor were regulated, liability for accidents defined, railroad commissions given larger powers, and freight and passenger rates determined. The result was a tangle of local regulations, many of which were designed to embarrass the roads and others of which were passed with slight knowledge of the practical questions involved.

Aside from his connection with the anti-trust campaign and the movement for railroad regulation, Roosevelt's most significant activities during his second administration related to conservation. As early as 1880 the Superintendent of the Census had called attention to the exhaustion of the best public lands. The truth of his assertion had been exemplified in the rush of settlers to Oklahoma when the former Indian Territory was opened to settlement on April 22, 1889. At noon on that day the blast of a cavalry bugle was the signal that any settler might enter and stake out his claim. On foot, on fleet horses, in primitive wagons, an excited, jostling mob rushed toward those lands that seemed most desirable. Trains were crowded to the roofs; tools, furniture, and portable houses were carried in from Texas, Nebraska and Kansas. By nightfall a stretch of waving prairie became Gruthrie, with a population of 10,000 persons; by the evening of the first day Oklahoma possessed a population of 50,000; twenty years later it had over a million and a half, contained flourishing cities, many public enterprises, and a beautiful state university.

The fact that desirable land was becoming so rare called attention to the waste and dishonesty in connection with our public land system. In his annual report for 1884 the Secretary of the Interior had complained that large amounts of land had been acquired under fictitious names or by persons employed for the purpose. Their holdings were then passed over to speculators who retained huge areas for a rising market. Railroads had kept lands granted to them, without fulfilling the conditions of the grants. Titled Englishmen and English land companies had gained control of tracts of unbelievable size, one of them being estimated at 3,000,000 acres. The history of the disposal of the public land had almost been duplicated in the history of the forest-bearing public domain, except that measures had earlier been taken to conserve the remnant of the once magnificent supply of standing timber. An act of 1891 had enabled the president to set apart as public reservations any lands bearing forests. All the presidents, from Harrison down, had availed themselves of their power, and had established great numbers of reservations, most of them in states west of the Mississippi.[6]

A few far-sighted individuals had long urged caution in the disposal of the public resources. Some beginnings in fact had already been made in the Division of Forestry in the Department of Agriculture, where Clifford Pinchot was actively interested in forest preservation. In 1901 and later his functions had been expanded, and the forestry service had taken up protection against fire, the sale of timber, and reforestation. In 1907 President Roosevelt appointed a commission to study the inland waterways, which after careful investigation recommended a convention for the discussion of conservation problems. Thereupon the President invited the governors of the states to Washington for a conference, at which conservation questions were thoroughly discussed. The resulting recommendations composed a complete, although general plan of reform: the natural resources of the country to be used for the prosperity of the American people; reclamation of arid lands; conservation of forests, minerals and water-power; the protection of the sources of the rivers; and cooperation between Congress and the states in developing a conservation program. A National Conservation Commission was later appointed which coordinated the work of organizing the movement, and made an exhaustive inventory of the nation's natural resources.

The conservation movement also called attention to the possibilities of the arid region between the western parts of Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas, and the eastern border of California. Within this vast area were large tracts of land that would be fertile if sufficiently supplied with water. The most important legislation in a series of acts designed to meet this need was the Reclamation Act of 1902. Under its provisions the federal government set aside the proceeds of the sale of public land in sixteen states and territories as a fund for irrigation work. With the resources thus obtained, water powers were developed, reservoirs built and large tracts supplied with water. Private companies and western states also carried out numerous projects. The Department of Agriculture after its establishment in 1889 also conducted many undertakings which, in effect, were conservation enterprises. It helped educate the American farmer in scientific methods, sought new crops in every corner of the globe, discovered and circulated means of combating diseases and insects, studied soils, distributed seeds and gathered statistics. In the arid and semi-arid regions the discovery of dry farming was of great value. This consists of planting the seed deep and keeping a mulch of dust on the surface by frequent cultivation, in order to retard the evaporation of the moisture in the ground underneath.[7]

Nothing can be more apparent than the complete change of position which was brought about during the eight years after the death of President McKinley. At the end of that period, both the industrial corporations and the railways were on the defensive, and the public had secured the whip hand. Industry, especially the railroads, was tamed and hobbled--some thought, crippled. Many factors contributed to the revolution. President Roosevelt was its most active agent, to be sure,--its "gigantic advertiser" and popularizer. But it could hardly have taken place--at least at the time and in the way it did--without the great upheaval of 1896, without the publicity which the "muck-rake" magazines and daily newspapers were able to offer, without the industrial consolidations of 1898 and later, and without the refusal of industry and the railways to obey earlier and less drastic laws, and their skilled and insistent attempts to find loop-holes in legislation.

From the standpoint of politics, the effect of the Roosevelt administrations was notable. As has been seen, the Republican party had become largely the party of the business and commercial classes, conservative and unyielding to the new demands of the late nineteenth century. Its leadership had been sharply challenged by the forces of unrest in 1896. On an issue other than a monetary one, the success of Bryan would have been possible. The failure of the attempt to get control of the federal government in the interest of the Populist program was only a temporary defeat, for the revival of unrest, although checked by the war with Spain, was sure soon to reappear. In President Roosevelt, the forces of discontent, especially in the Middle and Far West, saw their hoped-for champion, and their support of him was instant and complete. The dominant leadership and much of the rank and file of the Republican party had become liberal. The situation was anomalous, however, for no great political party can experience a thorough-going change of philosophy in a few years. Only the future, therefore, could tell whether the newer and more liberal element would continue to control the party, or whether a reaction against its leadership would take place.

It is too early to expect a biography of Roosevelt which is informed and critical, as well as sympathetic. The keenest judgment is to be found in Atlantic Monthly (CIX, 577), "Mr. Roosevelt." The following are also available: L.F. Abbott, Impressions of Theodore Roosevelt (1919); F.E. Leupp, The Man Roosevelt (1904); W.R. Thayer, Theodore Roosevelt (1919); C.G. Washburn, Theodore Roosevelt; the Logic of His Career (1916). Roosevelt can be partly understood through a critical reading of his writings, especially his Addresses and Presidential Messages (1904), and his Autobiography (1913).

On the coal strike consult the Autobiography, and Senate Reports, 58th Congress, special session, Document No. 6 (Serial Number 4556), the report of the President's Commission. The election of 1904 is discussed in Latane, Croly and Stanwood: see also C.M. Pepper, The Life and Times of Henry Gassaway Davis (1920). The new railroad acts are well discussed in W.Z. Ripley, Railroads: Rates and Regulations (1912), and by F.H. Dixon in Quarterly Journal of Economics, XXI, 22.

The literature of conservation is very large. An excellent single chapter is in Katherine Coman, Industrial History of the United States (rev. ed., 1910); C.R. Van Hise, The Conservation of Natural Resources in the United States (1913), is a standard work; R.P. Teele, Irrigation in the United States (1915), is detailed; for documents concerning the conference of governors, House of Representatives Document No. 1425, 60th Congress, 2nd session (Serial Number 5538).

The anti-trust campaign is best followed in Theodore Roosevelt, Addresses and Presidential Messages, and in the Autobiography. The Northern Securities decision is in United States Reports, vol. 193, p. 197.

[1] In view of the later activities of President Roosevelt, there is point in the remark of a satirist that Roosevelt did carry out the policies of McKinley--and bury them. Atlantic Monthly, CIX, 164.

[2] Above, p. 257.

[3] It was later denied that Baer made the statement, but a photographic copy of the letter was printed in Lloyd, Henry D. Lloyd, II, 190. See also Mitchell, Organized Labor, 384; Peck, Twenty Years, 693-6.

[4] Rumor says that Roosevelt sent Elihu Root to the eminent financial magnate, J.P. Morgan, with information of his intent to appoint the Cleveland Commission, and that Morgan applied the pressure to the coal operators.

[5] In 1917, fourteen years after Loewe's first suit, he recovered damages from the Union.

[6] In 1918, 151 national forests aggregated 176,000,000 acres. Secretary of the Interior, Annual Report, 1918, 61.

[7] The territory of Alaska contains immense stores of natural resources which are being conserved with more wisdom than characterized the disposal of our continental supplies. The area of the territory, 586,400 square miles, constitutes a, kingdom. It has uncounted wealth in fish, furs, timber, coal and precious metals. At present the federal government is building a railroad which will tap some of the resources of the region. Enc. Brit., "Alaska."

By 1908, the year of the presidential election, an influential portion of the Republican members of Congress, particularly in the Senate, were bitterly opposed to President Roosevelt. His attitude on the trusts and the railroads was offensive to many, and on several occasions he had gained the upper hand over Congress by means which were coming to be known as "big-stick" methods. The so-called "constructive recess" of 1903 was an example.

Under the provisions of the Constitution, the president appoints many officials with the advice and consent of the Senate, when it is in session, and fills vacancies that happen during a recess by granting commissions which expire at the end of the next session. On December 2, 1903, at noon, one session of Congress came to an end and another began. Precisely at 12 o'clock, according to the official statement, the President issued new commissions to W.D. Crum, a negro, to be collector of the port of Charleston, and also to 168 army officers, of whom the President's close friend Brigadier-General Leonard Wood was one. General Wood was to be promoted to a major-generalship and the remaining promotions were dependent upon his advance. The President's theory was that a "constructive recess" intervened between the two sessions, during which he could make recess appointments. Although the Senate was hostile to both Crum and Wood, it reluctantly succumbed to Roosevelt's wishes rather than withhold promotion from the 167 officers to whom it had no objection.

In 1908, Senator Tillman, an outspoken Democratic critic of the President, declared that senators vigorously denounced Roosevelt's radical ideas in private but that in public they opposed merely by inaction. Party loyalty was sufficient to keep these Republicans, in most cases, from open and continued rebellion. Hardly less hostile to the President were many of the business men of the country, who objected to his economic policies, but the only alternative to Roosevelt was Bryan, who, as one of the earliest proponents of radical legislation, was even more offensive. On the other hand, a large majority of the rank and file of the party, especially in the North and West, upheld the President with unfeigned enthusiasm and made his position in the party so strong that he could practically name his successor. Several candidates had more or less local support for the nomination--Senator Knox, of Pennsylvania, Governor Hughes, of New York, Speaker Cannon, of Illinois, Vice-President Fairbanks, of Indiana, Senator La Follette, of Wisconsin and Senator Foraker, of Ohio. The President's prestige and energy, however, were frankly behind the candidacy of his Secretary of War, William H. Taft.

The Republican convention of 1908 met in Chicago on June 16. Early in the proceedings the mention of Roosevelt's name brought an outburst of enthusiasm which indicated the possibility that he might be nominated for a third term, despite his expressed refusal to allow such a move to be made. In the platform the achievements of the retiring administration were recounted in glowing terms; tariff reform was promised; and a postal savings bank, the strengthening of the Interstate Commerce law and the Sherman Anti-trust act, the more accurate definition of the rules of procedure in the issuance of injunctions, good roads, conservation, pensions and the encouragement of shipping, received the stamp of party approval. Planks pledging the party to legislation requiring the publicity of campaign expenditures, the valuation of the physical property of railroads and the popular election of senators were uniformly rejected. The closing paragraph declared that the "trend of Democracy is toward Socialism, while the Republican party stands for wise and regulated individualism." The contest over the nomination was extremely brief, as Taft received 702 out of 979 votes on the first ballot. James S. Sherman of New York was nominated for the vice-presidency.

The Democrats, meanwhile, were in a quandary. A considerable fraction of the party desired the nomination of somebody other than Bryan, whose defeats in 1896 and 1900 had cast doubts upon the wisdom of a third trial. Nevertheless the failure of Parker in 1904 had been so overwhelming that the nomination of a conservative seemed undesirable and, moreover, no candidate appeared whose achievements or promise could overcome the prestige of Bryan. The national convention was held in Denver, July 7-10, and Bryan dominated all its activities. The platform welcomed the Republican promise to reform the tariff, but doubted its sincerity; promised changes in the Interstate Commerce law, a more elastic currency, improvements in the law of injunctions, generous pensions, good roads and the conservation of the national resources. In the main, however, the platform was an emphatic condemnation of the Republican party as the party of "privileges and private monopoly." It declared that the Republican speaker of the House of Representatives exercised such absolute domination as to stop the enactment of measures desired by the majority. It demanded the termination of the "partnership which has existed between corporations of the country and the Republican party," by which the business interests contributed great sums of money in elections in return for an unmolested opportunity to "encroach upon the rights of the people." It promised the enactment of laws preventing corporation contributions to campaign funds and providing for the publication before election of all contributions by individuals. Detailed and definite planks in relation to trusts indicated that the framers of the platform possessed at least the courage of their convictions. Three laws were promised: one preventing the duplication of directors among competing corporations; another establishing a license system which would place under federal authority those corporations engaged in interstate commerce which controlled as much as twenty-five per cent. of the product in which they dealt, and which should likewise protect the public from watered stock and prohibit any single corporation from controlling over fifty per cent. of the total amount of any commodity consumed in the United States; and, third, a law forcing corporations to sell to purchasers in all sections of the country on the same terms, after making due allowance for transportation costs.

As soon as the platform was out of the way, the convention turned to the nomination of the candidate. Only George Gray, of Delaware, and John A. Johnson, of Minnesota, contested the leadership of Bryan, but their support was so slight that he was chosen on the first ballot. John W. Kern, of Indiana, was nominated for the vice-presidency.

Of the smaller parties which shared in the election of 1908, the People's party and the Socialists should be mentioned. The Populists adopted a program of economic reforms many parts of which had been prominent in their platforms of 1892 and 1896. Both the Republicans and the Democrats, however, had adopted so many of these earlier demands that the Populists rapidly lost strength and disappeared after 1908. The Socialists likewise advocated economic reforms, together with government ownership of the railroads, and of such industries as were organized on a national scale. The candidate nominated was Eugene V. Debs, a labor leader who had gained prominence at the time of the Pullman strike.[1]

The only novelty in the campaign was Bryan's stand in regard to campaign funds. By calling upon his supporters for large numbers of small individual contributions, he drew attention to the fact that the corporations were helping generously to meet Taft's election expenses. At their leader's direction the Democratic committee announced that it would receive no contributions whatever from corporations, that it would accept no offering over $10,000 and that it would publish a list of contributors before the close of the campaign.

The result of the election was the triumph of Taft and his party. The Republican popular vote was 7,700,000; the Democratic, 6,500,000; the Socialist, 420,890. The election also gave the Republicans control of Congress, which was to be constituted as follows during 1909-1911: Senate, Democrats, 32, Republicans, 61; House of Representatives, Democrats, 172, Republicans, 219.

Few men in our history have had a wider judicial and administrative experience before coming to the presidency than that of William H. Taft. He was born in 1857 in Ohio, graduated from Yale University with high rank in the class of 1878 and later entered upon the study of law. A judicial temperament early manifested itself and Taft became successively judge of the Superior Court in Cincinnati and of a United States Circuit Court. From the latter post he was called to serve upon the Philippine Commission, was later Governor of the Philippines and Secretary of War in Roosevelt's cabinet. During the period of his connection with the Philippines and his membership in the Cabinet he visited Cuba, Panama, Porto Rico, Japan and the Papal Court at Rome in connection with matters of federal importance.

Personally Taft is kindly, unaffected, democratic, full of good humor, courageous. As a public officer he was slow and judicial, rather than quick and executive like his predecessor. Although in sympathy with the reforms instituted by Roosevelt, Taft was less the reformer and more conscious of considerations of constitutionality. Roosevelt thought of the domain of the executive as including all acts not specifically forbidden by the Constitution or by the laws of the nation; Taft thought of it as including only those which were specifically granted by the Constitution and laws. The one was voluble, a dynamo of energy, quick to seize and act upon any innovation that gave promise of being both useful and successful; the other thought and acted more slowly and was less sensitive to the feasibility of change. One possessed well- nigh all the attributes necessary for intense popularity; the other inspired admiration among a smaller group. Roosevelt had a peculiarly keen perception of the currents of public opinion, enjoyed publicity and knew how to achieve it; Taft was less quick at discovering the popular thing and less adept at those tricks of the trade that heightened the popularity of his predecessor.

Despite the patent differences of temperament and philosophy between Taft and Roosevelt, both expected that the new administration would be an extension of the old one. Roosevelt indicated this in his frank preference for Taft as his successor; Taft indicated it in his thorough acceptance of the policies of the preceding seven years and in his intention, expressed at the time of his inauguration, to maintain and further the reforms already initiated. His first act, however, the appointment of his official advisors, caused some surprise among the friends of his predecessor who expected that he would retain most if not all of the Roosevelt cabinet. When he did not do so, it seemed as if the attempt to further the Roosevelt policies would lack continuity.[2]

The immediate problem that faced the new executive was the revision of the tariff. The task was one which has frequently resulted in political disaster, but the platform left no choice to the President:

"The Republican party declares unequivocally for a revision of the tariff by a special session of Congress immediately following the inauguration of the next President.... In all tariff legislation the true principle of protection is best maintained by the imposition of such duties as will equal the difference between the cost of production at home and abroad, together with a reasonable profit to American industries."

The precise meaning of this declaration will perhaps always remain a matter of dispute, although it is certain that the public in general understood it to mean a distinct lowering of the tariff wall, and Taft committed himself to downward revision in his inaugural address. Moreover, whether it was intended by the framers to commit the party to downward revision or not, the method of defining the amount of protection to be granted was both novel and unsatisfactory, as Professor Taussig has pointed out. How could the costs of production at home or abroad be determined? To what extent would the principle announced in the platform be carried? Almost any commodity can be produced almost anywhere if the producer is guaranteed the cost of production, together with a reasonable profit. The wise revision of the tariff is difficult enough under any circumstances; under so vague a theory as was proposed in 1908, the chances of success became remote.

The drafting of the tariff bill proceeded in the usual manner. The Ways and Means Committee of the House, the chairman of which was Sereno Payne, held preliminary public "hearings," which were open to any who desired to offer testimony or make requests. Naturally, however, the great body of the consuming public was little represented; most of those who appeared were manufacturers, importers and other interested parties. The bill drawn up by the Committee and passed by the House revised existing duties, on the whole, in the downward direction. The Senate Finance Committee, however, under the leadership of Nelson W. Aldrich, an experienced and able proponent of a high protective tariff, made 847 amendments, many of them important and generally in the direction of higher rates. The Senate, like the House, contained several Republicans, usually called "insurgents, " who were inclined to break away from certain of the party doctrines. Senators Bristow, Cummins, Dolliver and La Follette were among them. This contingent had hoped for a genuine downward revision, and when they saw that the bill was not in accord with their expectations, they prepared to demand a thorough debate. Each of the insurgents made an especial study of some particular portion of the proposed measure so as to be well prepared to urge reductions. Their efforts were unavailing, however, and the bill passed--the insurgents voting with the great majority of the Democrats in the negative. The bill then went to a conference committee. Up to this point, the President had taken little share in the formation of the bill. Yet as leader of the party he had pledged himself to a downward revision and the result seemed likely not to be in the promised direction. He therefore exerted pressure on the conference committee and succeeded apparently in getting some reductions, chiefly the abolition of the duty on hides. The bill was then passed by both houses and signed by the President on August 5, 1909.

The question whether the Payne-Aldrich act redeemed the pledge embodied in the platform of 1908 will doubtless remain a debatable question. On the one hand, a prominent Republican member of the Committee on Ways and Means and of the Conference Committee, declared that the act represented the greatest reduction that had been made in the tariff at any single time since the first revenue law was signed by George Washington. Roosevelt also defended the act. Experts outside of Congress sharply differed. Professor Taussig analyzed the act in all its aspects and concluded that no essential change had been made in our tariff system. "It still left an extremely high scheme of rates, and still showed an extremely intolerant attitude on foreign trade." General public opinion was most affected by the fact that duties on cotton goods were raised, and those on woolen goods left at the high rates levied under the Dingley act. It also appeared that many silent influences had been at work--the duty on cheap cotton gloves, for example, being doubled through the efforts of an interested individual who procured the assistance of a New England senator.[3]

Not long after the passage of the act President Taft defended it in a speech at Winona, Minnesota, as the best tariff bill that the Republican party had ever passed. In regard to the woolen schedule he frankly said:

"Mr. Payne in the House, and Mr. Aldrich, in the Senate, although both favored reduction in the schedule, found that in the Republican party the interests of the wool growers of the Far West and the interests of the woolen manufacturers in the East and in other States, reflected through their representatives in Congress, were sufficiently strong to defeat any attempt to change the woolen tariff and that, had it been attempted, it would have beaten the bill reported from either committee.... It is the one important defect in the present Payne tariff."

The response of the press and the insurgent Republicans to the passage of the bill and to the Winona speech were ominous for the future of the party. Although not unanimous, condemnation was common in the West, even in Republican papers. Particular objection was made to the high estimate which the President placed upon the act and to his defence of Senator Aldrich, who had come to be looked upon as the forefront of the "special interests"; and western state Republican platforms in 1910 declared that the act had not been in accord with the plank of 1908.[4]

Coincidently with the disagreement over the Payne-Aldrich act, there raged the unhappy Pinchot-Ballinger controversy. One of the last acts of President Roosevelt had been to withdraw from sale large tracts of public land which contained valuable water-power. The purpose and the effect of the order was to prevent these natural resources from falling into private hands and particularly into the hands of syndicates or corporations who would develop them mainly for individual interests. President Taft's Secretary of the Interior, Richard A. Ballinger, took the attitude that the withdrawals were without statutory justification and he therefore revoked the order for withdrawals immediately after coming into office. Upon further investigation, however, he re-withdrew a part of the land, although somewhat doubtful of his power to do so.

During the summer of 1909, Gifford Pinchot, the Chief Forester, addressed an irrigation Congress in Spokane and asserted that the water-power sites were being absorbed by a trust. Much interest was aroused by the charge, which was looked upon as an attack on the Secretary of the Interior and his policy. Within a short time the idea became widespread, through the press, that Ballinger was associated with interests which were desirous of seizing the public resources and that this fact lay back of his partial reversal of the policy of his predecessor. This impression was deepened by the charges of L.R. Glavis, an employee of the Department of the Interior, concerning the claims of a certain Clarence Cunningham, representing a group of investors, to some exceedingly valuable coal lands in Alaska. Glavis asserted that the Cunningham claims were fraudulent, that many of the Cunningham group were personal friends of Ballinger and that the latter had acted as attorney for them before becoming Secretary of the Interior. President Taft, with the backing of an opinion from Attorney- General Wickersham, upheld Ballinger and dismissed Glavis. The press again took the matter up and the controversy was carried into Congress, where an investigation was ordered. About the same time Pinchot was removed for insubordination, and additional heat entered into the disagreement. The majority of the congressional committee of investigation later made a report exonerating Ballinger, but his position had become intolerable and he resigned in March, 1911. The result of the quarrel was to weaken the President, for the idea became common that his administration had been friendly with interests that wished to seize the public lands.

Republican complaint in regard to the tariff and the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy were surface indications of a division in the party into conservative or "old-guard," and progressive or insurgent groups. The same line of demarcation appeared in a quarrel over the power of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Joseph G. Cannon. Cannon had served in the lower branch of Congress almost continuously for twenty-seven years, and in 1910 was filling the position of speaker for the fourth consecutive time. Much of his official influence rested on two powers: he appointed the committees of the House and their chairmen, a power which enabled him to punish opponents, reward friends and determine the character of legislation; and he was the chairman and dominant power of the Committee on Rules which determined the procedure under existing practice and made special orders whenever particular circumstances seemed to require them. It was widely believed that Cannon, like Aldrich in the Senate, effectually controlled the passage of legislation, with slender regard to the wishes or needs of the people. "Cannonism" and "Aldrichism" were considered synonymous. For several years an influential part of the Republican and Independent, as well as the Democratic press had attacked Speaker Cannon as the enemy of progressive legislation. Many of them laid much of the blame for the character of the Payne-Aldrich act at his door. The Outlook decried "government by oligarchy"; The Nation declared that he belonged to another political age; Bryan queried what Cannon was selling and how much he got; Gompers, the head of the American Federation of Labor, pointed him out as the enemy of all reforms.

The outcry against the Speaker in the House itself, reinforced by the gathering opposition outside, found effective voice in a coalition of the Democrats and the insurgent Republicans. In mid-March, 1910, an insurgent presented a resolution designed to replace the old Committee on Rules by a larger body which should be elected by the House, and on which the speaker would have no place. The friends of Cannon rallied to his defence; other business fell into the background; and debate became sharp and personal. One continuous session lasted twenty-six hours, parliamentary fencing mingling with horse-play while each side attempted to get a tactical advantage over the other.[5] Eventually about forty insurgent Republicans joined with the Democrats to pass the resolution. The result of the change was to compel the speaker to be a presiding officer rather than the determining factor in the passage of legislation. About the time that Cannon's domination in the House was being broken, the announcement that Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and his staunchly conservative associate, Eugene Hale, of Maine, were about to retire indicated a similar change in the Senate. These men had served for long periods in Congress and were looked upon as the ablest and most influential of the "reactionary" element in the upper house.

Coincidently with the partial disintegration of the conservative wing of the Republican party in Congress, there was passed a large volume of legislation of the type desired by the insurgents. The public land laws were improved; acts requiring the use of safety appliances on railroads were strengthened; a Bureau of Mines was established to study the welfare of the miners; a postal savings bank system was erected; and an Economy and Efficiency Commission appointed to examine the several administrative departments so as to discover wasteful methods of doing business. Of especial importance was the Mann-Elkins Act of June 18, 1910, which further extended the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission. Experience had brought out serious defects in the rate-fixing procedure set up by the Hepburn Act. By that law, to be sure, a shipper could complain that the roads were charging him an unreasonable rate and the Commission might, in course of time, uphold him and order relief; but in the meantime the shipper, especially if he were a small one, might be crushed out of existence through the large rates, and the consuming public would have paid increased prices for commodities with no possibility of a remuneration to them, even if the Commission decided that the rates levied were unreasonably high. The Mann-Elkins law, therefore, provided that the Commission might suspend any proposed change in rates for a period not greater than ten months, and decide during that time whether it was reasonable and should go into effect or not. In this way the burden of proving the justice of a suggested change was placed upon the railroads.[6]

An act of June 25, 1910, which was amended a year later, required the publication of the names of persons contributing to the federal campaign funds of the political parties, and the amounts contributed, as well as a detailed account of the expenditures of the committees and the purposes for which the expenses were incurred. President Taft also urged the passage of an income tax amendment to the federal Constitution and indicated that he was in favor of an amendment providing for the popular election of senators. Amendments for both these purposes passed Congress; but they were not ratified and put into effect until 1913.

In June, 1910, Roosevelt returned from Africa whither he had gone for a hunting trip, after the inauguration of President Taft. Both elements in the Republican party were anxious for his sympathy and support. Roosevelt himself seems to have desired to remain outside the arena, at least for a time, but for many reasons permanent separation from politics was impossible. He became a candidate for the position of temporary chairman of the New York Republican State Convention against Vice-President James S. Sherman. The contest in the convention brought out opposition to him on the part of the old-guard, and his triumph left that wing of the party dissatisfied and disunited. During the summer and autumn of 1910 he made extensive political tours. At Ossawatomie, Kansas, he developed the platform of the "New Nationalism," which included more thorough control of corporations, and progressive legislation in regard to income taxes, conservation, the laboring classes, primary elections at which the people could nominate candidates for office, and the recall of elective officials before the close of their terms. He urged such vigorous use of the powers of the federal government that there should be no "neutral ground" between state and nation, to serve as a refuge for law-breakers. Critics pointed out that these proposals had been urged by the insurgents and the followers of Bryan, and there could be no doubt where the sympathies of Roosevelt lay in the factional dispute within the Republican party.

While conditions within the organization were such as were indicated by the hostile criticism of the Payne-Aldrich act, by the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy, the overturn of Speaker Cannon and the disintegration of the Aldrich-Hale group, the congressional election of 1910 took place. Signs of impending change had already become evident. Insurgent Republicans were carrying the party primaries; and the Democrats, who were plainly confident, emphasized strongly the tariff act, Cannonism and the high cost of living as reasons for the removal of the Republicans. The result was a greater upheaval than even the Democrats had prophesied. In nine states the Republicans were ousted from legislatures that would elect United States senators; the new Senate would contain forty-one Democrats and fifty-one Republicans--too narrow a Republican majority in view of the strength of the insurgents. In the choice of members of the lower branch of Congress there was a still greater revolution; the new House would contain 228 Democrats, 161 Republicans and one Socialist, while Cannon would be retired from the speakership. In eastern as well as western states, Democratic governors were elected in surprising numbers. Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Ohio and Oregon were among them. Of particular importance, as later events showed, was the success in New Jersey of Woodrow Wilson, former president of Princeton University.

Not long after the election of 1910 the President sent to Congress a special message urging the adoption of a reciprocal trade agreement with Canada. The arrangement provided for freedom of trade in many raw materials and food products, and for substantial reductions on some manufactured articles. He believed that the project would benefit both countries economically and improve the already friendly relations existing between them, and he set his heart upon its adoption. Opposition appeared at once: the farmers' organizations protested vigorously at the reduction of the tariff on agricultural products; the high protectionists were fearful of an entering wedge which might lead to further tariff reductions; and the paper and wood pulp interests also objected. Although the agreement eventually passed both houses of Congress by large majorities, the opposition was composed chiefly of Republicans. Objection to the arrangement in Canada turned out to be stronger than had been anticipated. The fear that commercial reciprocity might make the Dominion somewhat dependent on the United States seems to have caused a manifestation of national pride, and Sir Wilfred Laurier, who had led the forces in favor of the agreement, was driven out of power and reciprocity defeated. The result for the administration was failure and further division in the party.

Democratic control of the House during the second half of Taft's term effectually prevented the passage of any considerable amount of legislation. A parcel-post law, however, was passed, a Children's Bureau was established for the study of the welfare of children, and a Department of Labor provided for, whose secretary was to be a member of the cabinet. Aided by the insurgents, the Democrats attempted a small amount of tariff legislation. Although a general revision of the entire tariff structure would be a long and laborious task, specific schedules could be revised which would indicate what might be expected in case of Democratic success in 1912. The sugar, steel, woolen, chemical and cotton schedules were taken up in accord with this plan and bills were passed which were uniformly vetoed by the President.

In his attitude toward the regulation of big business, President Taft was in harmony with his predecessor and was in thorough sympathy, therefore, with suits brought under the Sherman law against the Standard Oil Company, and the American Tobacco Company. In May, 1911, the Supreme Court decided that both of these companies had been guilty of combining to restrain and to monopolize trade, and ordered a dissolution of the conspiring elements into separate, competing units. The Court also undertook to answer some of the knotty questions that had arisen in relation to section 1 of the act, which declares illegal "every contract, combination in the form of trust or otherwise, or conspiracy, in restraint of trade." Did the prohibition against every contract or combination mean precisely every contract, whether important or not? Or did it refer merely to large and unreasonable restraints? The phraseology of the statute seems to prohibit restraints of all kinds, and the previous decisions of the Court had been in line with this view. When, then, the decisions in these two cases erected the "rule of reason" and declared that only those restraints were forbidden that were unreasonable, the attention of some opponents of the trusts was focussed on the obiter dictum, rather than upon the decisions themselves. In taking this position, they had the support of Mr. Justice Harlan who agreed to the decision but condemned the obiter dictum, asserted that the exact words of the law forbade every contract, and deprecated what he believed to be the amendment of statutes by the courts. The dissolution of the companies into competing units, however, had no apparent effect that was of benefit to the public. In fact, immediate increases in the value of Standard Oil stocks indicated that the decision was of slight consequence.

In the meantime the widening of the breach in the Republican party was indicated by the formation of the National Progressive Republican League on January 21, 1911. Its most prominent leaders were Senators Bourne, Bristow and La Follette; and leading progressives in different states were invited to join--among them ex-President Roosevelt. It was the hope that if the latter joined the League, the step might help to place him in more open opposition to the Taft administration. The purpose of the organization was the passage of progressive economic and political legislation, especially acts providing for the election of senators by vote of the people, direct primaries for the nomination of elective officers, direct election of delegates to national conventions, the initiative, referendum and recall in the states, and a thorough-going corrupt practices act.

Early in 1912 the factions in the Republican party began to consider the question of a leader for the coming presidential campaign, some of the progressive element looking to La Follette as the natural candidate, and others to Roosevelt when it was seen that he would not support Taft for a renomination. On February 21, Roosevelt addressed a constitutional convention in Columbus, Ohio, and expressed a political creed that closely resembled the program of the National Progressive Republican League. In the meantime the demand for Roosevelt as a candidate had been incessant on the part of numerous Republicans of insurgent sympathies, who realized how many more progressive principles he had accepted than Taft. Finally on February 24 he replied to an appeal from a group of his supporters, including seven state governors, that he would accept a nomination. Thereupon most of the progressives transferred their allegiance from La Follette to the ex-President. President Taft's fighting spirit had become aroused, in the meanwhile, and he had declared that only death would keep him out of the fight.

The call had already been issued for the Republican Nominating Convention to be held in Chicago, in June, and the contest began for the control of the 1,078 delegates who would compose its membership. The supporters of Taft, being in possession of the party machinery, were able to dictate the choice of many of these delegates, especially from the South, by means that had been usual in politics for many years. The friends of Roosevelt, in order to overcome this handicap, began to demand presidential preference primaries, in which the people might make known their wishes, and in which his personal popularity would make him a strong contender. During the pre-convention campaign, twelve states held primaries and the others held the usual party conventions. At first Taft did not actively enter the contest, but the efforts of Roosevelt were so successful and his charges against the President so numerous that he felt compelled to take the stump. The country was then treated to the spectacle of a President and an ex-President touring the country and acrimoniously attacking each other. The progressives, Taft asserted, were "political emotionalists" and "neurotics"; Roosevelt, he complained, had promised not to accept another nomination, had broken his agreement, and had not given a fair account of the policies which the administration had been following. Roosevelt charged Taft with being a reactionary, a friend of the "bosses" and with using the patronage in order to secure a renomination. And he grated on the sensibilities of the nation by referring to his influence in getting Taft elected in 1908 and remarking, "it is a bad trait to bite the hand that feeds you." The result of the presidential preference primaries in the few states that held them was overwhelmingly in favor of Roosevelt; in the states where conventions chose the delegates, Taft obtained a majority; in the case of over 200 delegates, there were disputes as to whether Taft or Roosevelt men were fairly chosen. These contests, as usual, were decided by the National Republican Committee, with the right of appeal to the Convention itself. The Committee decided nearly all the contests in favor of Taft's friends, and since all the delegates thus chosen would sit in the Convention and vote on one another's cases, the decision seemed likely to be final.

The scene of action then shifted to Chicago where the Convention assembled on June 18. Aroused by the action of the Committee in the contests, Roosevelt went thither to care for his interests.[7] The election of a temporary chairman resulted in the choice of Elihu Root, who was favorable to Taft. The Roosevelt delegates, declaring that the contests had been unfairly decided, enlivened the roll-call by shouts of "robbers," "thieves"; and when Root thanked the Convention for the confidence which it reposed in him, his words were greeted with groans. Upon the failure of an attempt to revise the decision of the National Committee in the cases of the contested delegates, Roosevelt announced that he was "through." One of his supporters read to the Convention a statement from him charging that the Committee, under the direction of Taft, had stolen eighty or ninety delegates, making the gathering no longer in any proper sense a Republican convention. Thereafter most of the Roosevelt delegates refused to share either in the nomination of the candidate or in the adoption of a platform. The choice of Taft as the candidate was then made without difficulty.

The platform contained the usual planks concerning the party's past, the protective tariff and the civil service; and it reflected something of the rising interest in economic and political reforms in its advocacy of laws limiting the hours of labor for women and children, workmen's compensation acts, reforms in legal procedure, a simpler process than impeachment for the removal of judges, additions to the anti-trust law, the revision of the currency system, publicity of campaign contributions and a parcel- post.

As the Republican convention was drawing its labors to a close, the dissatisfied adherents of Roosevelt met and invited him to become the candidate of a new organization. Upon his acceptance, a call was issued for a convention of the Progressive Party, to be held in Chicago on August 5. The discord among the Republicans was viewed with undisguised content by the Democratic leaders, for it seemed likely to open to them the doorway to power. Yet the same difference between liberals and conservatives that had been the outstanding feature of the Republican convention was evident among the Democrats, and nobody could be sure that a schism would not take place.

There was no lack of aspirants for the presidential nomination. J.B. ("Champ") Clark, Speaker of the House of Representatives, Governor Judson Harmon, of Ohio, O.W. Underwood, Chairman of the House Committee on Ways and Means, and Governor Woodrow Wilson, of New Jersey, all had earnest supporters. In contests in the state conventions and primaries, Speaker Clark was most successful, although not enough delegates were pledged to him to secure the nomination.

The convention met in Baltimore on June 25, and for the most part centered about the activities of Bryan. On the third day he presented a resolution declaring the convention opposed to the nomination of any candidate who was under obligations to J.P. Morgan, T.F. Ryan, August Belmont, or any of the "privilege-hunting and favor-seeking class." An uproar ensued, but the resolution was overwhelmingly adopted. Balloting for the candidate then began. Speaker Clark had a majority, but was far from having the two- thirds majority which Democratic conventions require; Governor Wilson was more than a hundred votes behind him. While the fourteenth ballot was being taken, Bryan created a new sensation by announcing that he should transfer his vote from Clark to Wilson, on the ground that the New York delegates were in the hands of Charles F. Murphy, the leader of Tammany Hall, and that Murphy was for the Speaker. The relative positions of the two leading candidates remained unchanged, however, for five ballots more. Then the tide began to turn. At the thirtieth, Governor Wilson led for the first time, and on the forty-sixth Clark's support broke and Wilson was nominated.

The platform resembled that of 1908. It called for immediate downward revision of the tariff, the strengthening of the anti-trust laws, presidential preference primaries, prohibition of corporation contributions to campaign funds, a single term for the president and the revision of the banking and currency laws.

The organization of the Progressive party, in the meantime, was rapidly proceeding, and on August 5 the national convention was held. It was an unusual political gathering both in its personnel--for women delegates shared in its deliberations--and in the emotional fervor which dominated its sessions. At the Democratic convention the delegates had awakened the echoes with the familiar song "Hail! Hail! The gang's all here"; the Progressives expressed their convictions in "Onward, Christian Soldiers." Roosevelt's speech was called his "confession of faith"; his charge that both of the old parties were boss-ridden and privilege-controlled epitomized the prevailing sentiment among his hearers. Without a contest Roosevelt was nominated for the presidency and Hiram Johnson of California for the vice-presidency.

The platform adopted was distinctly a reform document. It advocated such political innovations as direct primaries, the direct election of senators, the initiative, referendum and recall, a more expeditious method of amending the Constitution, women's suffrage, and the limitation of campaign expenditures. A detailed program of social and economic legislation included laws for the prevention of accidents, the prohibition of child labor, a "living wage," the eight-hour day, a Department of Labor, the conservation of the nation's resources, and the development of the agricultural interests. The third portion of the platform dealt with "the unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics." It declared the test of corporate efficiency to be the ability "to serve the public"; it demanded the "strong national regulation of interstate corporations," a federal industrial commission comparable to the Interstate Commerce Commission and the protection of the people from concerns offering worthless investments under highly colored and specious appearances.

The results of the election indicated how complete the division in the Republican party had been. In the electoral college Wilson received 435 votes to Roosevelt's 88 and Taft's 8. Yet Wilson's popular vote--6,300, 000--fell far short of the combined Roosevelt-Taft vote--7,500,000--and was less than that of Bryan in 1896, 1900, and 1908.[8] The fact that the combined Roosevelt-Taft vote was less than that received by Taft in 1908 seems to indicate that many Republicans refused to vote. The control of Congress, in both houses, went to the Democrats, even such a popular leader as Speaker Cannon failing of reelection. In twenty-one of the thirty-five states where governors were chosen, the Democrats were triumphant. Whether, then, the schism in the Republican party was responsible for the success of the opposition, or whether the electorate was determined upon a change regardless of conditions in the party which had hitherto controlled popular favor, the fact was that the overturn was complete. And circumstances that could not have been foreseen and that affected the entire world were destined to make the political revolution profoundly significant.

In the main, periodical literature written with more or less partisan bias must be relied upon.

For the election of 1908, F.A. Ogg, National Progress (1918), and the better newspapers and periodicals. W.H. Taft may be studied in his Presidential Addresses and State Papers (1910), Present Day Problems (1908), and Our Chief Magistrate and His Powers (1916).

On the Payne-Aldrich tariff: S.W. McCall in Atlantic Monthly, vol. CIV, p. 562; G.M. Fisk in Political Science Quarterly, XXV, p. 35; H.P. Willis in Journal of Political Economy, XVII, pp. 1, 589, XVIII, 1; in addition to Tarbell and Taussig.

The documents in the Pinchot-Ballinger controversy are in Senate Documents, 61st Congress, 2nd session, vol. 44 (Serial Number 5643), and 3rd session, vol. 34 (Serial Numbers 5892-5903).

For other incidents: C.R. Atkinson, Committee on Rules and the Overthrow of Speaker Cannon (1911); Canadian reciprocity in Senate Documents, 61st Congress, 3rd session, vol. 84 (Serial Number 5942); Appleton's American Year Book (1911). The decisions in the Standard Oil and American Tobacco cases are in United States Reports, vol. 221, pp. 1, 106; a good discussion will be found in W.H. Taft, Anti- Trust Act and the Supreme Court (1914). For the rise of the insurgent movement and the election of 1912, F.E. Haynes, Third Party Movements (1916); R.M. La Follette, Autobiography; B.P. De Witt, Progressive Movement (1915); W.J. Bryan, Tale of Two Conventions (1912); besides Ogg, Beard and Stanwood.

The American Year Book (1910-), becomes serviceable in connection with major political events. Its articles are usually non-partisan and may be relied upon to bring continuing tendencies and practices up to date.

[1] Above, p. 322.

[2] The cabinet was composed of: P.C. Knox, Pa., Secretary of State; P. MacVeagh, III., Secretary of the Treasury; J.M. Dickinson, Tenn., Secretary of War; G.W. Wiekersham, N.Y., Attorney-General; F.H. Hitchcock, Mass., Postmaster-General; G.L. Meyer, Mass., Secretary of the Navy; R.A. Ballinger, Wash., Secretary of the Interior; J. Wilson, Ia., Secretary of Agriculture; C. Nagel, Mo., Secretary of Commerce and Labor. Meyer and Wilson had been in Roosevelt's cabinet.

[3] Other features of the act were the establishment of a Court for the settlement of tariff disputes, provisions for a tariff commission and a tax on corporation incomes.

[4] Mr. Dooley, who was well known as a humorous character created by F.P. Dunne, made merry with the claim that the tariff had been reduced, by reading to his friend Mr. Hennessy the "necessities of life" which had been placed on the free-list and which included curling stones, teeth, sea- moss, newspapers, nuts, nux vomica, Pulu, canary bird seed, divy divy and other commodities.

[5] A sample of the jocosity that partially relieved the tension is the following portion of the Congressional Record for March 18:

"The Speaker pro tempore: The House will be in order. Gentlemen will understand the impropriety of singing on the floor, even though the House is not at this moment transacting any business. The House is not in recess.

"Chorus. "There'll be a hot time in the old town to-night."

"The Speaker pro tempore. That was last night, not to-night. (Laughter.) The House will be in order.

"Mr. Shackleford. Mr. Speaker, I make the point of order that the tap- tapping of the Chair's gavel interferes with the music. (Laughter.)"

Cf. Atkinson, Committee on Rules, 115.

[6] A Commerce Court was also provided, so as to expedite the decision of appeals from orders of the Commission. Its career was brief, for Congress was not well-disposed toward the project, and the Court was abolished in 1913.

[7] When Roosevelt arrived in Chicago, he remarked that he felt like a "bull moose," an expression which later gave his party its popular name.

[8] Roosevelt, 4,000,000; Taft, 3,500,000.