Taking on Theodore Roosevelt

by Harry Lembeck

  33. William Howard Taft, letter to William R. Nelson, July 31, 1907, William Howard Taft Papers, folder 1, box 1, Ohio History Connection, Columbus.

  34. Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography, 2 vols. (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), 1:323. See also Zane L. Miller, Boss Cox's Cincinnati: Urban Politics in the Progressive Era (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968), p. 197.

  35. “Sad Awakening Awaits Foraker.”

  36. “Depend on Burton to Smash Foraker,” New York Times, March 25, 1907.

  37. Maj. Charles Penrose, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, May 7, 1907, box 70, Foraker Papers.

  38. H. J. Browne, letters to Joseph B. Foraker, April 19, 20, and 25, as well as May 10, 1907; copies of which were attachments to Joseph Foraker, memorandum, April 9, 1907, Report of the Proceedings of the Court of Inquiry Relative to the Shooting Affray at Brownsville, Tex…., S. Doc. No. 60–701, vols. 4–6 (1911) (hereafter cited as CI-2), pp. 1393–98.

  39. All references to Foraker's employment of Browne are in CI-2, beginning at p. 1393.

  40. Proceedings of a General Court-Martial…in the Case of Maj. Charles W. Penrose…, S. Doc. No. 60–402 (1908), p. 1248 (acquittal of Maj. Penrose); Proceedings of a General Court-Martial…in the Case of Capt. Edgar A. Macklin…, S. Doc. No. 60–402 (1908), p. 247 (acquittal of Capt. Macklin).

  41. The Brownsville Affray, S. Doc. No. 60–389 (1908), pp. 56–58.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: BROWNSVILLE GHOULS

  1. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Nicolas Longworth, June 26, 1907, in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 5, The Big Stick: 1905–1907 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 695.

  2. William Howard Taft, letter to William R. Nelson, June 26, 1906, folder 2, box 1, William Howard Taft Papers, Ohio History Connection, Columbus; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Henry Cabot Lodge, June 27, 1907, in Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, 1884–1918 (New York: C. Scribner's Sons, 1925), 2:272–73. Roosevelt never mentioned Brownsville when he spoke in Canton; Lodge talked him out of it. See Everett Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker: An Uncompromising Republican (Columbus: Ohio History Press, 1948), p. 263.

  3. “Foraker Assails All His Enemies,” New York Times, July 28, 1907.

  4. See Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker, p. 264; and Henry F. Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography (Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1964), 1:323.

  5. “Foraker Wants to Know about Suffrage in the South,” Washington Post, August 22, 1907.

  6. See Murray N. Rothbard, Economic Depressions: Their Cause and Cure (Auburn, AL: Ludwig von Mises Institute, 2009), p. 8, http://books.google.com/books?id=R87hqJk42T0C.

  7. “Schiff Predicts Panic Unless Money Is Freed,” New York Times, January 5, 1906.

  8. See chapter sixteen. See also H. W. Brands, TR: The Last Romantic (New York: Basic Books, 1997), p. 601. “No man in an important position ever handled as little money or paid as little attention to money as he did.” James E. Amos, Theodore Roosevelt: Hero to His Valet (New York: John Day, 1927), p. 103.

  9. See Edmund Morris, Theodore Rex (New York: Random House, 2001), p. 488.

  10. He went on to say, “[These men] combine to bring about as much financial stress as possible, in order to discredit the policy of the government and thereby secure a reversal of that policy, so that they may enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil-doing…. I regard this contest as one to determine who shall rule this free country—the people through their governmental agents, or a few ruthless and domineering men whose wealth makes them peculiarly formidable because they hide behind the breastworks of corporate organization.”

  11. David Fettig, “F. Augustus Heinze of Montana and the Panic of 1907,” Region, August 1989, https://www.minneapolisfed.org/publications_papers/pub_display.cfm?id=3807&TC=1&DPR=1 (accessed October 2, 2014); Christopher Gray, “Stanford White's Backdrop for the Panic of 1907,” New York Times, March 5, 2009; Abigail Tucker, “The Financial Panic of 1907: Running from History,” Smithsonian.com, October 9, 2008, http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-financial-panic-of-1907-running-from-history-82176328 (accessed October 2, 2014); see Jean Strouse, Morgan: American Financier (New York: Random House, 1999), p. 575; “The 1907 Crisis in Historical Perspective,” Center for History and Economics, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~histecon/crisis-next/1907/ (accessed May 31, 2014).

  12. On October 22, Knickerbocker Trust was allowed to fail. Strouse, Morgan: American Financier, p. 577.

  13. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to George Cortelyou, October 25, 1907, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:821–22. See also Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:822n1. Others felt Morgan was entitled to more than one line of anonymous thanks. “Morgan should be represented as buttressing up the tattering fabric of finance the way Giotto painted St. Francis holding up the falling Church with his shoulder.” Bernard Berenson to Isabella Stewart Gardner, cited in Strouse, Morgan: American Financier, pp. 588–89. A first-class discussion of the Panic of 1907 and Morgan's decisive role in it is in Strouse, Morgan: American Financier, pp. 573–89.

  14. “Knickerbocker Trust Panic,” InvestmentNews, http://www.investmentnews.com/gallery/20120716/FREE/716009999/PH (accessed May 31, 2014).

  15. “Morgan Visits the President,” New York Times, November 23, 1907.

  16. Ralph Tyler, letters to George Myers, August 8 and 16, 1907, George A. Myers Papers, 1890–1929, Ohio History Connection, Columbus.

  17. T. Thomas Fortune, letter to Emmett Scott, September 7, 1907, in The Booker T. Washington Papers, ed. Louis R. Harlan and Raymond W. Smock, vol. 9, 1906–8 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980), p. 335.

  18. Booker T. Washington, letter to Fred Moore, October 5, 1907, in ibid., 9:363–64.

  19. Ralph Tyler, letter to Booker T. Washington, October 5, 1907, in ibid., 9:365–66.

  20. See Emma L. Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune: Militant Journalist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1972), p. 314.

  21. Moore in a letter to Washington said he had no objection to publishing it after deleting a reference to a Roosevelt letter to Washington just before he went to Panama. Fred Moore, letter to Booker T. Washington, October 19, 1907, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:378–79. Moore added, “Fortune is bitter. Dont you send him any more money.” But two days later Charles Anderson, whom Moore showed a copy, tried to spike it on Washington's behalf. “I advised Moore not to print any of it.” Charles Anderson, letter to Booker T. Washington, October 21, 1907, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:384–86.

  22. Cited in Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune, p. 316. See also August Meier, Negro Thought in America, 1880–1915 (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1966), p. 229.

  23. Booker T. Washington, letter to Ralph Tyler, November 4, 1907, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:394–95.

  24. It is not clear who authorized the editorial's publication in the first place. Washington did not admit to it. Thornbrough said it was “with Scott's approval.” See Thornbrough, T. Thomas Fortune, p. 314.

  25. W. E. B. Du Bois, “Address to the Country” (speech, Annual Meeting of the Niagara Movement, Boston, August 1907), cited in W. E. B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919, by David L. Lewis (New York: Henry Holt, 1993), p. 339.

  26. See Thomas A. Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises: An Account of the International Complications Arising from the Race Problem on the Pacific Coast (Gloucester, MA: P. Smith, 1964), p. 86.

  27. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Victor Metcalf, October 27, 1906, cited in ibid., p. 92.

  28. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Senator Eugene Hale, October 27, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:473–75.

  29. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Kermit Roosevelt, October 27, 1906, in ibid., 5:475–76.

  30. “Japan's Demand Heeded,” Los Angeles Herald, October 27, 1906.
<
br />   31. “Metcalf Starts Investigation,” San Francisco Call, November 2, 1906. Unwittingly the school board president was subscribing to Roosevelt's shouldering the school problem because it dealt with the country's foreign policy, “a matter…for persons other than the members of the School Board to pass upon.”

  32. See Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises, p. 88.

  33. See chapter thirteen.

  34. In the hierarchy of races as seen by Roosevelt, northern Europeans were the most advanced. (His ancestors came to America from Holland, firmly anchored in northern Europe.)

  35. “President Demands Citizenship for Japanese,” New York Times, December 5, 1906.

  36. Theodore Roosevelt, Sixth Annual Message (address, Washington, DC, December 3, 1906), available online from the Miller Center at the University of Virginia, http://millercenter.org/president/speeches/detail/3778 (accessed October 2, 2014); and New York Times, December 5, 1906. The author used the transcript in these two sources for quoted material from the annual message.

  37. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Elihu Root, October 29, 1906, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 5:484.

  38. See Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises, p. 95.

  39. “Pardee Tells of Year's Prosperity in California,” Los Angeles Tribune, January 9, 1907.

  40. The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 6, The Big Stick: 1907–1909 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), p. 1605; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises, p. 127; “Roosevelt Discusses Japanese Situation,” Los Angeles Herald, January 6, 1907.

  41. Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 6:1605; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises, p. 127; “Roosevelt Discusses Japanese Situation,” Los Angeles Herald, January 6, 1907.

  42. “Hayes and Kahn See Roosevelt about Japs,” San Francisco Call, January 8, 1907.

  43. “I have always been fond of the West African proverb, ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick. You will go far.’” Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Henry Sprague, January 26, 1900, American Treasures of the Library of Congress, http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trm139.html (accessed May 31, 2014). This is probably Roosevelt's most famous and often repeated comment and is used to describe his foreign policy.

  44. See Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-American Crises, pp. 126–45, for the entire story and what it took the make the deal.

  45. Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954).

  46. T. Thomas Fortune, letter to Booker T. Washington, December 8, 1906, in Harlan and Smock, Booker T. Washington Papers, 9:157.

  47. But only temporarily. Thirty-four years later the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR: “DO YOU CARE TO SAY ANYTHING ON THE SUBJECT?”

  1. “The Election in Ohio,” Outlook, November 16, 1907, pp. 549–50. “Foraker Now Leads Taft in Ohio Fight,” New York Times, November 17, 1907.

  2. “Foraker Now Leads Taft in Ohio Fight.”

  3. See Everett Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker: An Uncompromising Republican (Columbus: Ohio History Press, 1948), p. 265; and “Foraker Indorsed by the Ohio League,” New York Times, November 21, 1907. Fifteen months later it changed its collective mind and “jumped out of the [Foraker] bandwagon” and endorsed Roosevelt's administration while criticizing those in Congress who did not. “Home Blow to Foraker,” New York Times, February 23, 1909.

  4. Garfield Diary, November 29, 1907, James Rudolph Garfield Papers, Library of Congress.

  5. Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker, pp. 266–67.

  6. George Michaelis, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, June 18, 1907, box 68, Joseph Foraker Papers, Cincinnati History Library and Archives; Joseph B. Foraker, letter to George Michaelis, June 26, 1907, Foraker Papers.

  7. In the early twentieth century, alienist was the term for psychiatrist.

  8. George Michaelis, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, August 1, 1907, Foraker Papers; unsigned copy of letter to Michaelis, August 3, 1907, Foraker Papers.

  9. George Michaelis, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, December 6, 1907, Foraker Papers; Joseph B. Foraker, letter to George Michaelis, December 7, 1907, Foraker Papers. Michaelis's letter speaks of two “actions in Washington and New York.” Only the one in New York would be filed.

  10. Reid was the soldier shoved into the Rio Grande by a customs inspector when returning from Mexico. See chapter three.

  11. “Negro Troops Case Taken into Court,” New York Times, December 27, 1907; “Rights of Soldiers,” Washington Post, December 27, 1908. The US District Court's file and the petition filed by his lawyers, which would show the relief he wanted, cannot be found. According to the district court's published decision, his petition asked only “to recover the pay and emoluments which would have accrued to him” and made no demand for reenlistment. If Reid's lawyers thought he was entitled to reenlistment, they would have asked for it.

  12. Foraker, I Would Live It Again, p. 286.

  13. See chapter fifteen. See also Henry F. Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt: A Biography (New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1984), pp. 339–41; and Willard B. Gatewood, Theodore Roosevelt and the Art of Controversy (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970), pp. 237–39.

  14. Foraker, I Would Live It Again, p. 286.

  15. Ibid., p. 288.

  16. Napoleon B. Marshall, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, July 24, 1907, Foraker Papers. Julia Foraker seems to confirm the postal spying. She wrote that Senator Foraker was told by a friend from northern Ohio, “Be careful what you say in your letters. I have learned that they are being opened in the Post Office at Washington.” Foraker, I Would Live It Again, p. 286. She does not identify the friend and may have been referring to Marshall's letter. “Senator Foraker told me, when he was having his difficulties with Roosevelt, that his letters were opened in transit. A man I knew, who had a great deal of difficulty with the Postoffice Department, resorted to every method to keep the contents of his letters from the department officials, using sealing wax and other protective measures, but it was no use. One of the officials told him to save his time as the inspectors had the art down fine, and could open any letter and reseal it so that nothing could be actually proved.” Arthur W. Dunn, From Harrison to Harding: A Personal Narrative, Covering a Third of a Century, 1888–1921 (New York: G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1922), p. 89.

  17. These were the discussions he referred to in his December 7, 1907, letter to Michaelis. See “Democratic Votes Uphold Roosevelt,” New York Times, February 26, 1908.

  18. Theodore Roosevelt, message to the Senate, March 11, 1908, The Brownsville Affray, S. Doc. No. 60-389 (1908), p. 22.

  19. “I am entirely in accord with the bill you showed me.” Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Francis E. Warren, March 9, 1908 (two days before the majority report and the appended bill were presented to the Senate), in The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, ed. Elting E. Morison, vol. 6, The Big Stick: 1907–1909 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), pp. 966–67. Roosevelt made a significant (for him) concession. He no longer required a reenlisted soldier first to assist in finding the guilty soldiers.

  20. The Warner and Foraker bills are at S. Doc. No. 60-389, pp. 27 and 106–108, respectively. The reference to “justice” is at S. Doc. No. 60-389, p. 26.

  21. Joseph Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life, 2 vols. (Cincinnati: Stewart & Kidd, 1917), 2:293.

  22. Ibid., 2:292–93; Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Francis E. Warren, March 9, 1909, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 6:966–67; see also Theodore Roosevelt, letter to Sen. William Alden Smith, April 24, 1908, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 6:1016–17 (“[Foraker's] would be clearly unconstitutional and I should pay not the slightest heed to it…. [It] is simply to replace murderers in the public armed forces of the United States on the sole condition that to the crime of murder in the past they add the crime of perjury in the future.”). It is interesting to note that not only did Roosevelt not
require assistance in ferreting out the guilty soldiers, in his letter to Warren, by saying “no reappointment would be made under it by me,” he realized his successors might do just that.

  23. Foraker, I Would Live It Again, p. 270.

  24. He knew it. During the debate that day he addressed Vice President Fairbanks as “Your Honor,” and then with a bow and smile-joked, “Coming events cast their shadows before them. I suppose it will not be long before I must become accustomed to the phrase, ‘May it please the court.’” Walters, Joseph Benson Foraker, p. 250, citing an article in the New York Times and reprinted in New York Age, March 14, 1908. See also Joseph B. Foraker, letter to D. H. Moore, April 4, 1908, Foraker Papers, in which he suggests he has given up hopes for nomination.

  25. “Negroes Wild over Foraker in Senate,” New York Times, April 15, 1908.

  26. 42 Cong. Rec. 4709 (1908) (address of Sen. Foraker).

  27. 42 Cong. Rec. 4710.

  28. Ibid.

  29. 42 Cong. Rec. 4720.

  30. 42 Cong. Rec. 4711.

  31. Ibid.

  32. 42 Cong. Rec. 4715, 4716, 4718.

  33. It was segregated service, but the other bars would not permit even that.

  34. 42 Cong. Rec. 4714.

  35. 42 Cong. Rec. 4715.

  36. 42 Cong. Rec. 4722. Foraker might have pointed out they also tried to find the guilty parties.

  37. 42 Cong. Rec. 4723.

  38. “Negroes Wild over Foraker.”

  39. J. G. Schurman, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, April 27, 1908, cited in Foraker, Notes of a Busy Life, 2:298.

  40. Theodore Roosevelt, letter to William Smith, April 24, 1908, in Morison, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 6:1016–17.

  41. Ibid, 6:966.

  42. John E. Milholland, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, May 14, 1908; Joseph B. Foraker, letter to John E. Milholland, May 16, 1908; John E. Milholland, letter to Joseph B. Foraker, May 18, 1908; and Foraker, letter to John E. Milholland, May 20, 1908, all in box 81, Foraker Papers.