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

by Doris Kearns Goodwin

  Near the end of his speech, however, Roosevelt introduced a radical proposal that demolished any prospect of securing support from a broad party base. “When a judge decides a constitutional question, when he decides what the people as a whole can or cannot do, the people should have the right to recall that decision if they think it wrong,” he insisted. Time and again, he had witnessed “lamentable” judicial decisions by state courts, which had declared laws designed to secure better conditions for laborers unconstitutional. It was “foolish to talk of the sanctity of a judge-made law,” he pointed out, when such cases were often the product of a divided bench, with “half of the judges” fervently condemning the outcome. “If there must be a decision by a close majority,” Roosevelt suggested, “then let the people step in and let it be their majority that decides.”

  The “damaging effect” of Roosevelt’s recall speech was soon evident. The proposition that “a plebiscite or popular referendum” could overturn “the highest appellate tribunals in the states,” the New York Sun argued, had “revolutionary” consequences for the framework of America’s government—creating nothing less than a “Court of the Crowd, with supreme jurisdiction.” Acknowledging that Roosevelt had not included Supreme Court decisions in his proposal, the editorial predicted that such a policy would eventually compromise the highest court in the land as well. Why require the long, cumbersome procedure to secure a constitutional amendment? While the Sun’s opposition was predictable, many papers followed a similar line of reasoning. The Colonel’s proposed judicial recall, declared the St. Louis Republic, revealed “Mr. Roosevelt’s incapacity to grasp a legal proposition.” The World characterized the speech as Roosevelt’s attempt to “out demagogue all other demagogues.” With this address, the New York Times predicted, the former president had effectively removed himself from his party, rendering his nomination impossible.

  Beyond this outcry in the press, Roosevelt’s inflammatory speech estranged him from several of his closest allies. “Theodore has gone off upon a perfectly wild program,” Elihu Root told a friend, admitting that he had “been feeling very sad about [Roosevelt’s] new departure.” His fellow cabinet member Oscar Straus shared Root’s consternation. Roosevelt had shown him a draft of the speech a week before, and Straus was appalled by the judicial recall proposition. His attempt to discuss the issue with Roosevelt, however, had been summarily rebuffed. “That was so unlike the Roosevelt I knew,” Straus added, “that I was quite disappointed and somewhat taken aback.”

  While Straus kept his objections private, Henry Cabot Lodge felt compelled to declare his disapproval publicly. “I am opposed to the constitutional changes advocated by Colonel Roosevelt,” he told the New York Times. Though the two men had been “close and most intimate friends” for three decades, he could not remain silent when “the sanctity of the judiciary” was under attack. “I have had my share of mishaps in politics but I never thought that any situation could arise which would have made me so miserably unhappy as I have been during the past week,” Lodge wrote to Roosevelt, following his public statement. “I knew of course that you and I differed on some of these points but I had not realized that the difference was so wide.” Roosevelt replied the next day: “My dear fellow, you could not do anything that would make me lose my warm personal affection for you.”

  The swirling controversy only reinforced Edith Roosevelt’s chagrin over her husband’s decision to engage in what would undoubtedly prove a ferocious fight with Taft for the nomination. The previous six months had not been easy for her. In September 1911, riding “at a gallop” with Theodore, she had been thrown on the hard macadam road when her favorite horse suddenly “swerved and wheeled.” The concussion and dislocation of three vertebrae that resulted required three weeks of bed rest. “She is very much shattered,” Roosevelt confided to a friend a month later. Her convalescence had just begun when Theodore seriously started to entertain the idea of running. “Politics are hateful,” Edith despaired in a letter to Kermit. “Father thinks he must enter the fight definitely . . . and there is no possible result which could give me aught but keen regret.” Three days after the Columbus speech, Edith and her daughter Ethel sailed to South America. “At the worst of it I was forced to be away,” she wrote a friend, admitting that “in all my life I was never more unhappy.”

  Few were more vexed by Roosevelt’s determination to run than his son-in-law, Congressman Nicholas Longworth, whose family had known the Tafts for decades. In her memoir Alice recorded “the quandary” her husband faced: “On the one hand his friendship with Mr. Taft and the fact that he came from Mr. Taft’s own district; on the other his affection for and his admiration of Father, made his position almost intolerable. I have never been so sorry for any one.” Roosevelt sympathized with Nick’s uncomfortable position. “Of course you must be for Taft,” he told Nick on the eve of his announcement. Still, his son-in-law found the situation painful, particularly as Alice grew “single-minded in enthusiasm” for her father’s campaign, evincing more emotion and interest in politics than ever before. This newfound political passion stirred domestic strife: at dinner parties with members of Nick’s family, Alice fought back whenever they criticized her father. “I got furious,” she confided in her diary after one unpleasant exchange. “Poor Nick angry—Says I must ‘shut up.’ ”

  If family and friends were foiled by Roosevelt’s decision, the Colonel himself embraced the looming battle with gusto. “It is not the critic who counts,” he had famously preached upon his return from his African safari, “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 strives valiantly; who errs, and comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause.”

  Indeed, his exuberance for battle manifested itself three days before his planned announcement, when he answered a question about his intentions with a spontaneous declaration: “My hat is in the ring.” The tradition of “shying the hat” went back to a time when men either fought in a ring “with bare knuckles” or flung a hat at a rooster that would only fight when goaded. The former president’s reference to fisticuffs and cockfighting, the New York Evening World commented, undoubtedly heralded “some brutality in the contest.”

  On Sunday evening, February 25, Roosevelt’s New York office released the governors’ request that “in the interests of the people as a whole,” the Colonel should respond affirmatively to the “unsolicited and unsought” demand that he enter the race. “I deeply appreciate your letter,” Roosevelt publicly replied, affirming, “I will accept the nomination for President if it is tendered to me, and I will adhere to this decision until the convention has expressed its preference.”

  That same night, before news of his decision had become public, Roosevelt attended a Porcellian Club Dinner and a meeting of the Harvard Overseers, after which he went to the home of his old college friend, Judge Robert Grant. At Roosevelt’s request, Grant had invited another college friend, the historian William Roscoe Thayer, and William Allen White to dinner. While Roosevelt showed “no signs” of agitation about the upcoming struggle, his friends expressed misgivings about his decision to run and the backlash from the Columbus speech. White continued to believe that public sentiment stood “overwhelmingly” with Roosevelt but doubted whether the political system was “flexible enough to register that sentiment.” If presidential primaries existed across the nation, he was confident Roosevelt would win, but the convention system had myriad ways of thwarting public desire. Grant believed Roosevelt was making “an unnecessary and possibly fatal blunder” by challenging a sitting president instead of waiting for an open field four years later. And Thayer begged him, “for the sake of his own future, not to engage in a factional strife
which might end his usefulness to the country.”

  The Colonel blithely deflected their arguments with animation and good humor. Never losing his composure when Thayer as a historian defended the judiciary and argued that Roosevelt’s platform would “destroy representative government” in favor of “the whims of the populace,” Roosevelt countered that he could identify nearly four dozen senators who obtained their offices through the influence of Wall Street. “Do you call that popular, representative government?” he queried in response. And when Grant wondered if he would have the backing of party leaders, Roosevelt acknowledged that he had “none of them; not even Lodge.” Instead, he counted on a cadre of young leaders, like Governor Robert Bass of New Hampshire.

  As the lively conversation broke up around midnight, Grant made one final attempt to dissuade Roosevelt from running, emphasizing that people would think him disloyal to the president. About to retire to the guest room upstairs, Roosevelt angrily declared: “What do I owe to Taft? It was through me and my friends that he became President. I had him in the hollow of my hand and he would have dropped out.” To illustrate his point, he withdrew his pocketknife from his pocket, balanced it in the palm of his hand, then let it clatter to the floor.

  THE PRESIDENT, THE FIRST LADY, and a few guests, including Archie Butt, were at dinner in the White House when a messenger brought Roosevelt’s letter declaring his candidacy. Reading it aloud to those at the table, Taft remarked that it was more definite than he had expected. Assuming it would be laden “with conditions and explanations,” he was surprised to find a clear “rallying cry to the Progressives.” Nellie turned to her husband. “I told you so four years ago, and you would not believe me,” she chided. Her husband gave a good-natured laugh. “I know you did, my dear, and I think you are perfectly happy now. You would have preferred the Colonel to have come out against me than to have been wrong yourself.”

  Archie was less able to make light of the revelation, tossing in his bed that night unable to sleep. A week earlier, with the president’s blessing, he had made plans for a short European vacation with his good friend, the painter and sculptor Frank Millet. Archie had driven himself “like a steam engine” through the continuous round of dinners and receptions marking the winter social season, and now felt “tired all the time.” They were planning to sail on the Berlin. “If the old ship goes down,” he wrote his sister-in-law, Clara, “you will find my affairs in shipshape condition.”

  As he lay in his bed that night, Archie had second thoughts about the trip. “It seems to me that the President will need every intime near at hand now. If we are ever to be of any real comfort to him, this is the time,” he reflected. “I can see he hates to see me go, and I feel like a quitter in going.” That morning, he canceled his sailing orders and told the president of his intention to remain in Washington. “He would not hear of it,” Archie told his Aunt Kitty, “and insisted on my going on the ground this was the only time I could get away.”

  On Saturday, March 2, Archie Butt sailed for Europe. He hated “to leave the Big White Chief,” he told Clara, but he’d be back in six weeks, returning to the White House in plenty of time to support the president during “the fight of his life for the nomination.”

  “BY A STRANGE COINCIDENCE,” The Washington Post reported, both Taft and Roosevelt opened their national headquarters on the same day. The Taft men commandeered twelve luxurious rooms in the Raleigh Hotel, while two blocks away, the Roosevelt headquarters occupied the tenth floor of the Munsey Building. To head his campaign, the Colonel chose Montana senator Joseph M. Dixon, an energetic young man with “a very pleasant and winning personality, easy manners, and attractive address.” Taft selected Illinois congressman William Brown McKinley, chairman of the Republican National Committee. No relation to the assassinated president, McKinley had made a fortune in traction corporations before entering Congress in 1905. For both campaigns, major financial backers helped furnish “the sinews of war.” Roosevelt would enjoy the support of two multimillionaires—Frank Munsey, the publisher of newspapers and magazines, and George Perkins, who had departed the house of Morgan “to devote himself to public affairs.” Taft could rely on traditional Republican Party stalwarts, including the financiers Otto Bannard and Chauncey Depew. And once again, Charley Taft contributed handsomely to his brother’s campaign.

  As the battle for the nomination began, Taft was immensely relieved that the Colonel’s radical Columbus speech provided the opportunity to distinguish his own position “without indulging in any personal attack.” Though he agreed with many of the Colonel’s proposals on capital and labor, he had felt that the initiative and the referendum were problematic and was “unalterably opposed” to “the recall of judicial decisions.” In a letter to Charley, he noted that Roosevelt had “stirred up a veritable hornet’s nest of disapproval.” The issues were now “sharply defined,” clearing “the political atmosphere wonderfully.” Meeting with Roosevelt’s friend Henry White in early March, Taft vowed that his campaign would remain a battle of ideas. Indeed, he hoped that “when all this turmoil of politics had passed,” he and Roosevelt “would get together again and be as of old.”

  Speaking in New York, Boston, and Toledo in the late winter and early spring, Taft deployed a series of metaphors to illuminate the inherent dangers in subjecting judicial decisions to “the momentary passions of a people.” In one late winter speech, he warned that judicial recall would topple “the pillars of the temple.” In subsequent addresses that spring, the president warned that such action threatened to smash “the ark of the covenant” and that it laid “the axe at the foot of the tree of well ordered freedom.” Defending his beloved judiciary, Taft found his voice. At the State House in Boston, he enjoyed the most “genuine ovation” of his speaking career. “One cannot adequately describe,” he told Charley, “the manner in which my speech was received without using extravagant expressions.”

  “Taft has behaved with dignity and amiable forbearance since the announcement,” Roosevelt’s friend Judge Grant told the historian James Ford Rhodes at the end of March, noting that he had “become almost an idol, even in circles where a few months ago he was reviled.” If Taft triumphed, Grant continued, it would be “on the crest of the wave of revolt from and denunciation of Roosevelt.” In recent weeks, suspicion that Roosevelt had not granted the president “quite the square deal seems to have taken hold of the public mind,” and “the abuse” of the Colonel in the New York and Massachusetts newspapers had been “overwhelming and bitter.”

  When the election year opened, only one eastern state—New Jersey—and five western states—Wisconsin, Nebraska, Oregon, North Dakota, and California—made use of the direct primary. Everywhere else, delegates would be selected at district and state conventions, where local machines and the power of federal patronage gave the president a decided advantage.

  Taft’s campaign had already established control of most southern state conventions before Roosevelt formally entered the race. Fearful that the region’s running totals would make Taft’s lead appear impregnable before delegates from the rest of the country were selected, an enterprising Roosevelt supporter organized groups of men to contest the results of conventions throughout the South. Even if it was later determined that legitimate Taft majorities existed, the newspapers would be forced to list the results as contested rather than straight Taft victories. When rumors reached Roosevelt that bribes were being employed, he wrote his overenthusiastic organizer that while he was “absolutely sure that there was not a particle of truth” to the accusations, he nonetheless wanted “assurance” that no “improper” tactics were being used “to influence any man.”

  At state conventions in the North and West, brutal altercations broke out, swiftly dispelling Taft’s hope for a high-minded campaign based on the issues. In Michigan, Taft’s forces secured a victory after what one newspaper described as “the worst riots that ever occurred in a political gathering in the state.” More than 1,800 men
arrived at the Bay City Armory to claim 1,400 seats. The Taft men, the New York Times reported, were admitted first and filled the hall “despite the frantic efforts of the Roosevelt men to gain entrance through side doors, windows, and the basement.” With the aid of the state militia, delegates without proper credentials were “seized bodily” and thrown to the back of the crowd. Eventually, four hundred Roosevelt supporters were admitted, and “then the fireworks began.” When the chairman of the Taft delegation attempted to open the meeting, the Colonel’s men “set up a roar,” making it impossible for him to continue. One Roosevelt advocate rushed the platform only to be flung backward, landing atop the newspapermen’s table. More than a hundred men joined the fight before police “charged on the combatants and restored order with their clubs.” The Roosevelt faction promptly selected their own delegates before leaving the hall, “yelling and jeering at their foes.” The Taft faction then moved forward with the regular order of business.

  Violence erupted at conventions in many other states as well, including Missouri and Oklahoma. In the third Missouri district, the Taft contingent, positioned at the only open door with “clubs and baseball bats,” prevented Roosevelt supporters from entering. Pandemonium broke out in Oklahoma City when a Roosevelt man wearing a Rough Rider outfit entered the hall on a horse and “rode down the aisle to the rostrum.” Before an hour had passed, a series of “dynamite explosions” shook the convention hall. A few weeks later, at a district convention in Guthrie, Oklahoma, a Roosevelt supporter held a loaded gun to the head of the chairman of Taft’s delegation. He wanted to be fully prepared, he declared, in case “any chicanery” occurred. Before the “all-night session” came to a close, one delegate had “dropped dead” from an apparent apoplexy.