The American public did not quite know what to make of this dramatic gesture. Roosevelt"s critics said, of course, that it was the first overt display of his combativeness, and that from this he would go on to create a great army and be ready, at the slightest provocation, to attack any foreign Power. In fact, however, the sending of the Great Fleet, which was wholly his project, was designed by him to strengthen the prospect of peace for the United States. Through it, he gave a concrete ill.u.s.tration of his maxim: "Speak softly, but carry a big stick."
The Panama Ca.n.a.l was then half dug and would be finished in a few years. Distant nations thought of this country as of a land peopled by dollar-chasers, too absorbed in getting rich to think of providing defense for themselves. The fame of Dewey"s exploit at Manila Bay had ceased to strike wonder among foreign peoples, after they heard how small and almost contemptible, judging by the new standards, the Squadron was by which he won his victory.
j.a.pan, the rising young giant of the Orient, felt already strong enough to resent any supposed insult from the United States.
Germany had embarked on her wild naval policy of creating a fleet which would soon be able to cope with that of England.
When, however, the Great Fleet steamed into Yokohama or Bombay or any other port, it furnished a visible evidence of the power of the country from which it came. We could not send an army to furnish the same object-lesson. But the Fleet must have opened the eyes of any foreign jingoes who supposed that they might send over with impunity their battleships and attack our ports. In this way it served directly to discourage war against us, and accordingly it was a powerful agent for peace. Spectacular the voyage was without question, like so many of Roosevelt"s acts, but if you a.n.a.lyze it soberly, do you not admit that it was the one obvious, simple way by which to impress upon an uncertain and rapacious world the fact that the United States had manpower as well as money-power, and that they were prepared to repel all enemies?
On February 22, 1909, the White Fleet steamed back to Hampton Roads and was received by President Roosevelt. It had performed a great moral achievement. It had also raised the efficiency of its officers and the discipline of its crews to the highest point.
There had been no accident; not a scratch on any ship.
"Isn"t it magnificent?" said Roosevelt, as he toasted the Admirals and Captains in the cabin of the Mayflower. "n.o.body after this will forget that the American coast is on the Pacific as well as on the Atlantic." Ten days later he left the White House, and after he left, the prestige of the American Fleet was slowly frittered away.
So important is it, if we would form a just estimate of Roosevelt, to understand his att.i.tude towards war, that I must refer to the subject briefly here. One of the most authoritative observers of international politics now living, a man who has also had the best opportunity for studying the chief statesmen of our age, wrote me after Roosevelt"s death: "I deeply grieve with you in the loss of our friend. He was an extraordinary man. The only point in which I ever found myself seriously differing from him was in the value he set upon war. He did not seem to realize how great an evil it is, and in how many ways, fascinated as he was by the virtues which it sometimes called out; but in this respect, also, I think his views expanded and mellowed as time went on. His mind was so capacious as to take in Old-World affairs in a sense which very few people outside Europe, since Hamilton, have been able to do."
Now the truth is that neither the eminent person who wrote this letter, nor many others among us, saw as clearly during the first decade of this century as Roosevelt saw that war was not a remote possibility, but a very real danger. I think that he was almost the first in the United States to feel the menace of Germany to the entire world. He knew the strength of her army, and when she began to build rapidly a powerful navy, he understood that the likelihood of her breaking the peace was more than doubled; for with the fleet she could at pleasure go up and down the seas, picking quarrels as she went. If war came on a great scale in Europe, our Republic would probably be involved; we should either take sides and so have to furnish a contingent, or we should restrict our operations to self-defense. In either case we must be prepared.
But Roosevelt recognized also that on the completion of the Panama Ca.n.a.l we might be exposed to much international friction, and unless we were ready to defend the Ca.n.a.l and its approaches, a Foreign Power might easily do it great damage or wrest it from us, at least for a time. Here, too, was another motive for facing the possibility of war. We were growing up in almost childish trust in a world filled with warlike nations, which regarded war not only as the obvious way in which to settle disputes, but as the easiest way to seize the territory and the wealth of rich neighbors who could not defend themselves.
This being the condition of life as our country had to lead it, we were criminally remiss in not taking precautions. But Roosevelt went farther than this; he believed that, war or no war, a nation must be able to defend itself; so must every individual be. Every youth should have sufficient military training to fit him to take his place at a moment"s notice in the national armament. This did not mean the maintenance of a large standing army, or the adoption of a soul and character-killing system of militarism like the German. It meant giving training to every youth who was physically sound which would develop and strengthen his body, teach him obedience, and impress upon him his patriotic duty to his country.
I was among those who, twenty years ago, feared that Roosevelt"s projects were inspired by innate pugnacity which he could not outgrow. Now, in this year of his death, I recognize that he was right, and I believe that there is no one, on whom the lesson of the Atrocious War has not been lost, who does not believe in his gospel of military training, both for its value in promoting physical fitness and health and in providing the country with competent defenders. Roosevelt detested as much as anyone the horrors of war, but, as he had too much reason to remind the American people shortly before his death, there are things worse than war. And when in 1919 President Charles W. Eliot becomes the chief advocate of universal military training, we need not fear that it is synonymous with militarism.
On one subject--a protective tariff--I think that Roosevelt was less satisfactory than on any other. At Harvard, in our college days, John Stuart Mill"s ideas on economics prevailed, and they were ably expounded by Charles F. Dunbar, who then stood first among American economists. Being a consistent Individualist, and believing that liberty is a principle which applies to commerce, not less than to intellectual and moral freedom, Mill, of course, insisted on Free Trade. But after Roosevelt joined the Republican Party--in the straw vote for President, in 1880, he had voted like a large majority of undergraduates for Bayard, a Democrat--he adopted Protection as the right principle in theory and in practice. The teachings of Alexander Hamilton, the wonderful spokesman of Federalism, the champion of a strong Government which should be beneficent because it was unselfish and enlightened, captivated and filled him. In 1886, in his Life of Benton, he wrote: "Free traders are apt to look at the tariff from a sentimental standpoint; but it is in reality a purely business matter and should be decided solely on grounds of expediency. Political economists have pretty generally agreed that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in practice; but if the majority of the people in interest wish it, and it affects only themselves, there is no earthly reason why they should not be allowed to try the experiment to their heart"s content." *
* Roosevelt: Thomas H. Benton, 67. American Statesmen Series.
Perhaps we ought to infer from this extract that Roosevelt, as an historical critic, strove to preserve an open mind; as an ardent Republican, however, he never wavered in his support of the tariff. Even his sense of humor permitted him to swallow with out a smile the demagogue"s cant about "infant industries," or the raising of the tariff after election by the Republicans who had promised to reduce it. To those of us who for many years regarded the tariff as the dividing line between the parties, his stand was most disappointing. And when the head of one of the chief Trusts in America cynically blurted out, "The Tariff is the mother of Trusts," we hoped that Roosevelt, who had then begun his stupendous battle with the Trusts, would deal them a staggering blow by shattering the tariff. But, greatly to our chagrin, he did nothing.
His enemies tried to explain his callousness to this reform by hinting that he had some personal interest at stake, or that he was under obligations to tariff magnates. Nothing could be more absurd than these innuendoes; from the first of his career to the last, no man ever brought proof that he had directly or indirectly secured Roosevelt"s backing by question able means.
And there were times enough when pa.s.sions ran so high that any one who could produce an iota of such testimony would have done so. The simple fact is, that in looking over the field of important questions which Roosevelt believed must be met by new legislation, he looked on the tariff as unimportant in comparison with railroads, and conservation, and the measures for public health. I think, also, that he never studied the question thoroughly; he threw over Mill"s Individualism early in his public career and with it went Mill"s political economy. As late as December, 1912, after the affronting Payne Aldrich Tariff Act had been pa.s.sed under his Republican successor, I reminded Roosevelt that I had never voted for him because I did not approve of his tariff policy. To which he replied, almost in the words of the Benton extract in 1886, "My dear boy, the tariff is only a question of expediency."
In this field also I fear that we must score a miss against him.
Cavour used to say that he did not need to resort to craft, which was supposed to be a statesman"s favorite instrument, he simply told the truth and everybody was deceived. Roosevelt might have said the same thing. His critics were always on the look out for some ulterior motive, some trick, or cunning thrust, in what he did; consequently they misjudged him, for he usually did the most direct thing in the most direct way.
The Brownsville Affair proved this. On the night of August 13, 1906, several colored soldiers stationed at Fort Brown, Texas, stole from their quarters into the near-by town of Brownsville and shot up the inhabitants, against whom they had a grudge. As soon as the news of the outbreak reached the fort, the rest of the colored garrison was called out to quell it, and the guilty soldiers, under cover of darkness, joined their companions and were undiscovered. Next day the commander began an investigation, but as none of the culprits confessed, the President discharged nearly all of the three companies. There upon his critics insinuated that Roosevelt had indulged his race hatred of the blacks; a few years before, many of these same critics had accused him of wishing to insult the Southern whites by inviting Booker Washington to lunch. The reason for his action with the Brownsville criminals was so clear that it did not need to be stated. He intended that every soldier or sailor who wore the uniform of the United States, be he white, yellow, or black, should not be allowed to sully that uniform and go unpunished. He felt the stain on the service keenly; in spite of denunciation he trusted that the common sense of the Nation would eventually uphold him, as it did.
A few months later he came to Cambridge to make his famous "Mollycoddle Speech," and in greeting him, three or four of us asked him jokingly, "How about Brownsville?" "Brownsville?" he replied, laughing; "Brownsville will soon be forgotten, but "Dear Maria" will stick to me all my life." This referred to another annoyance which had recently bothered him. He had always been used to talk among friends about public matters and persons with amazing unreserve. He took it for granted that those to whom he spoke would regard his frank remarks as confidential; being honorable himself, he a.s.sumed a similar sense of honor in his listeners. In one instance, however, he was deceived. Among the guests at the White House were a gentleman and his wife. The latter was a convert to Roman Catholicism, and she had not only all the proverbial zeal of a convert, but an amount of indiscretion which seems incredible in any one. She often led the conversation to Roman Catholic subjects, and especially to the discussion of who was likely to be the next American Cardinal.
President Roosevelt had great respect for Archbishop Ireland, and he said, frankly, that he should be glad to see the red hat go to him. The lady"s husband was appointed to a foreign Emba.s.sy, and they were both soon thrown into an Ultramontane atmosphere, where clerical intrigues had long furnished one of the chief amus.e.m.e.nts of a vapid and corrupt Court. The lady, who, of course, could not have realized the impropriety, made known the President"s regard for Archbishop Ireland. She even had letters to herself beginning "Dear Maria," to prove the intimate terms on which she and her husband stood with Mr. Roosevelt, and to suggest how important a personage she was in his estimation. a.s.sured, as she thought, of her influence in Washington, she seems also to have aspired to equal influence in the Vatican. That would not be the first occasion on which Cardinals" hats had been bestowed through the benign feminine intercession. Reports from Rome were favorable; Archbishop Ireland"s prospects looked rosy.
But the post of Cardinal is so eminent that there are always several candidates for each vacancy. I do not know whether or not it came about through one of Archbishop Ireland"s rivals, or through "Dear Maria"s" own indiscretion, but the fact leaked out that President Roosevelt was personally interested in Archbishop Ireland"s success. That settled the Archbishop. The Hierarchy would never consent to be influenced by an American President, who was also a Protestant. It might take instructions from the Emperor of Austria or the King of Spain; it had even allowed the German Kaiser, also a Protestant, indirectly but effectually to block the election of Cardinal Rampolla to be Pope in 1903; but the hint that the Archbishop of St. Paul, Minnesota, might be made Cardinal because the American President respected him, could not be tolerated. The President"s letters beginning "Dear Maria"
went gayly through the newspapers of the world, and the man in the street everywhere wondered how Roosevelt could have been so indiscreet as to have trusted so imprudent a zealot. "Dear Maria"
and her husband were recalled from their Emba.s.sy and put out of reach of committing further indiscretions of that sort.
Archbishop Ireland never became Cardinal. In spite of the President"s forebodings, the "Dear Maria" incident did not cling to him all his life, but sank into oblivion, while the world, busied with matters of real importance, rushed on towards a great catastrophe. Proofs that a man or a woman can do very foolish things are so common that "Dear Maria" could not win lasting fame by hers. I do not think, however, that this experience taught Roosevelt reticence. He did not lose his faith that a sense of honor was widespread, and would silence the tongues of the persons whom he talked to in confidence.
No President ever spoke so openly to newspaper men as he did. He told them many a secret with only the warning, "Mind, this is private," and none of them betrayed him. When he entered the White House he gathered all the newspaper men round him, and said that no mention was to be made of Mrs. Roosevelt, or of any detail of their family life, while they lived there. If this rule were broken, he would refuse for the rest of his term to allow the representative of the paper which published the unwarranted report to enter the White House, or to receive any of the President"s communications. This rule also was religiously observed, with the result that Mrs. Roosevelt was spared the disgust and indignity of a vulgar publicity, which had thrown its lurid light on more than one "First Lady of the Land" in previous administrations, and even on the innocent Baby McKee, President Harrison"s grand-child.
We cannot too often bear in mind that Theodore Roosevelt never forgot the Oneness of Society. If he aimed at correcting an industrial or financial abuse by special laws. he knew that this work could be partial only. It might promote the health of the entire body, but it was not equivalent to sanifying that entire body. There was no general remedy. A plaster applied to a skin cut does not cure an internal disease. But he watched the unexpected effects of laws and saw how that influence spread from one field to another.
Roosevelt traced closely the course of Law and Custom to their ultimate objects, the family and the individual. In discussing the matter with Mr. Rhodes he cordially agreed with what the historian said about our American rich men. He insisted that the same thing held true of our politicians, even the worst: that the average Roman rich man, like the average Roman public man, of the end of the Republic and of the beginning of the Empire, makes the corresponding man of our own time look like a self-denying, conscientious Puritan. He did not think very highly of the American multi-millionaire, nor of his wife, sons, and daughters when compared with some other types of our citizens; even in ability the plutocrat did not seem to Roosevelt to show up very strongly save in his own narrowly limited field; and he and his womanhood, and those of less fortune who modeled their lives upon his and upon the lives of his wife and children, struck Roosevelt as taking very little advantage of their opportunities. But to denounce them with hysterical exaggeration as resembling the unspeakable tyrants and debauchees of cla.s.sic times, was simple nonsense. Roosevelt hoped he had been of some a.s.sistance in moving our people along the line Mr. Rhodes mentioned; that is, along the line of a sane, moderate purpose to supervise the business use of wealth and to curb its excesses, while keeping as far aloof from the policy of the visionary and demagogue as from the policy of the wealthy corruptionist.
CHAPTER XIX. CHOOSING HIS SUCCESSOR
Critics frequently remark that Roosevelt was the most masterful politician of his time, and what we have already seen of his career should justify this a.s.sertion. We need, however, to define what we mean by "politician." Boss Platt, of New York, was a politician, but far removed from Roosevelt. Platt and all similar dishonest manipulators of voters--and the dishonesty took many forms--held their power, not by principles, but by exerting an unprincipled influence over the ma.s.ses who supported them.
Roosevelt, on the other hand, was a great politician because he saw earlier than most men certain fundamental principles which he resolved to carry through whether the Bosses or their supporters liked it or not. In a word he believed in principles rather than in men. He was a statesman, and like the statesman he understood that half a loaf is often better than no bread and that, though he must often compromise and conciliate, he must surrender nothing essential.
As a result, his career as a.s.semblyman, as Civil Service Commissioner, as Police Commissioner of New York City, as Governor of New York State, and as President, seems a continuous rising scale of success. We see the achievement which swallows up the baffling difficulties and the stubborn opposition. These we must always remember if we would measure the extent of the victory. It was Roosevelt"s persistence and his refusal to be baffled or turned aside which really made him seem to triumph in all his work.
He never doubted, as I have often said, the necessity of party organization in our political system, although he recognized the tendency to corruption in it, the unreasoning loyalty which it bred and its subst.i.tution of Party for Country in its teaching.
He had known something of political machine methods at Albany.
After he became President, he knew them through and through as they were practiced on national proportions at Washington. The Machine had hoped to shelve him by making him Vice President, and in spite of it he suddenly emerged as President. This confrontation would have been embarra.s.sing on both sides if Roosevelt had not displayed unexpected tact. He avowed his purpose of carrying out McKinley"s policies and he kept it faithfully, thus relieving the Machine of much anxiety. By his straightforwardness he even won the approval of Boss Quay, the lifelong political bandit from Pennsylvania, who went to him and said in substance: "I believe that you are square and I will stand by you until you prove otherwise." Roosevelt made no bargain, but like a sensible man he did not forbid Quay from voting on his side. Personally, also, Quay"s lack of hypocrisy attracted him; for Quay never pretended that he was in politics to promote the Golden Rule and he had skirted so close to the Penal Code that he knew how it looked and how he could evade it.
Senator Hanna, the Ohio political Boss, who had made McKinley President by ways which cannot all be doc.u.mented except by persons who have examined the Recording Angel"s book (and research students of that original source never return), was another towering figure whom Roosevelt had to get along with. He found out how to do it, and to do it so amicably that it was reported that he breakfasted often with the Ohio Senator and that they even ate griddle-cakes and sc.r.a.pple together. The Senator evidently no more understood the alert and fascinating young President than we under stand what is going on in the brain of a playful young tiger, but instinct warned him that this mysterious young creature, electrified by a thousand talents, was dangerous and must be held down. And so with the other members of the Republican Machine which ran both Houses of Congress and expected to run the undisciplined President too. Roosevelt studied them all and discovered how to deal with each.
At the beginning of the year 1904, everybody began to discuss the next Presidential campaign. Who should be the Republican candidate? The President, naturally, wished to be elected and thereby to hold the office in his own right and not by the chance of a.s.sa.s.sination. Senator Hanna surprised many of the politicians by bagging a good many delegates for himself. He probably did not desire to be President; like Warwick he preferred the glory of king-maker to that of king; but he was a shrewd business man who knew the value of having goods which, although he did not care for them himself, he might exchange for others. I doubt whether he deluded himself into supposing that the American people would elect so conspicuous a representative of the Big Interests as he was, to be President, but he knew that the fortunes of candidates in political conventions are uncertain, and that if he had a considerable body of delegates to swing from one man to another, he might, if his choice won, become the power behind the new throne as he had been behind McKinley"s. And if we could suspect him of humor he may have enjoyed fun to a mild degree in keeping the irrepressible Roosevelt in a state of suspense.
Senator Hanna"s death, however, in March, 1904, removed the only compet.i.tor whom Roosevelt could have regarded as dangerous.
Thenceforth he held the field, and yet, fa.r.s.eeing politician though he was, he did not feel sure. The Convention at Chicago nominated him, virtually, by acclamation. In the following months of a rather slow campaign he had fits of depression, although all signs pointed to his success. Talking with Hay as late as October 30, he said: "It seems a cheap sort of thing to say, and I would not say it to other people, but laying aside my own great personal interests and hopes,-- for of course I desire intensely to succeed,--I have the greatest pride that in this fight we are not only making it on clearly avowed principles, but we have the principles and the record to avow. How can I help being a little proud when I contrast the men and the considerations by which I am attacked, and those by which I am defended?" *
* W. R. Thayer: John Hay, II, 356, 357.
Just at the end, the campaign was enlivened by the attack which the Democratic candidate, Judge Alton B. Parker, made upon his opponent. He charged that Mr. Cortelyou, the manager of the Republican campaign, had received great sums of money from the Big Interests, and that he had, indeed, been appointed manager because, from his previous experience as Secretary of the Department of Commerce, he had special information in regard to malefactors of great wealth which would enable him to coerce them to good purpose for the Republican Corruption Fund. President Roosevelt published a letter denying Judge Parker"s statements as "unqualifiedly and atrociously false." If Judge Parker"s attack had any effect on the election it was to reduce his own votes.
Later, Edward H. Harriman, the railroad magnate, tried to smirch Roosevelt by accusing him of seeking Harriman"s help in 1904, but this charge also was never sustained.
At the election on November 8, Roosevelt had a majority of nearly two million and a half votes out of thirteen million and a half cast, thus securing by large odds the greatest popular majority any President has had. The Electoral College gave him 336 votes and Parker 140. That same evening, his victory being a.s.sured, he dictated the following statement to the press: "The wise custom which limits the President to two terms, regards the substance and not the form, and under no circ.u.mstances will I be a candidate for and accept the nomination for another." Those who heard this statement, or who had talked the matter over with Roosevelt, under stood that he had in mind a renomination in 1908, but many persons regarded it as his final renunciation of ever being a candidate for the Presidency. And later, when circ.u.mstances quite altered the situation, this "promise" was revived to plague him.
>From March 4, 1905, he was President "in his own right." Behind him stood the American people, and he was justified in regarding himself, at that time, as the most popular President since Washington. The unprecedented majority of votes he had received at the election proved that, and proved also that the country believed in "his policies." So he might go ahead to carry out and to extend the general reforms which he had embarked on against much opposition. No one could question that he had a mandate from the people, and during his second term he was still more aggressive.
Now, however, came the little rift which widened and widened and at last opened a great chasm between Roosevelt and the people on one side and the Machine dominators of the Republican Party on the other. For although Roosevelt was the choice of the Republicans and of migratory voters from other parties, although he was, in fact, the idol of millions who supported him, the Republican Machine insisted on ruling. Before an election, the Machine consents to a candidate who can win, but after he has been elected the. Machine instinctively acts as his master. A strong man, like President Cleveland, may hold out against the Bosses of his party, but the penalty he has to pay is to find himself bereft of support and his party shattered. This might have happened in Roosevelt"s case also, if he had not been more tactful than Cleveland was in dealing with his enemies.
He now had to learn the bitter knowledge of the trials which beset a President whose vision outsoars that of the practical rulers of his party. In the House of Representatives there was a little group led by the Speaker, Joseph G. Cannon, of Illinois, who controlled that part of Congress with despotic arrogance. In the Senate there was a similar group of political oligarchs, called the Steering Committee, which decided what questions should be discussed, what bills should be killed, and what others should be pa.s.sed. Aldrich, of Rhode Island, headed this. A multi-millionaire himself, he was the particular advocate of the Big Interests. Next came Allison, of Iowa, an original Republican, who entered Congress in 1863 and remained there for the rest of his life, a hide-bound party man, personally honest and sufficiently prominent to be "talked of" for Vice President on several occasions. He was rather the peacemaker of the Steering Committee, having the art of reconciling antagonists and of smoothing annoying angles. A little older, was Orville H.
Platt, the Senator from Connecticut who died in 1905, and was esteemed a model of virtue among the Senators of his time. As an offset to the men of threescore and ten and over was Albert J.
Beveridge, the young Senator from Indiana, vigorous, eloquent, fearless, and radical, whose mind and heart were consecrated to Roosevelt. Beveridge, at least, had no ties, secret or open, with the Trusts, or the Interests, or Wall Street; on the contrary, he attacked them fiercely, and among other Anti-Trust legislation he drove through the Meat Inspection Bill. How he managed to get on with the gray wolves of the Committee it would be interesting to hear; but we must rid ourselves of the notion that those gray wolves sought personal profit in money by their steering. None of them was charged with using his position for the benefit of his purse. Power was what those politicians desired; Power, which gave them the opportunity to make the political tenets of their party prevail. Orville Platt, or Allison, regarded Republicanism with al most religious fanaticism; and we need not search far in history to find fanatics who were personally very good and tender-hearted men, but who would put heretics to death with a smile of pious satisfaction.
Roosevelt"s task was to persuade the Steering Committee to support him in as many of his Radical measures as he could. They had done this during his first Administration, partly because they did not see whither he was leading. Senator Hanna, then a member of the Steering Committee, attempted to steady all Republicans who seemed likely to be seduced by Roosevelt"s subversive novelties by telling them to "stand pat," and, as we look back now, the Senator from Ohio with his stand-pattism broom reminds us of the portly Mrs. Partington trying to sweep back the inflowing Atlantic Ocean. During the second Administration, however, no one could plead ignorance or surprise when Roosevelt urged on new projects. He made no secret of his policies, and he could not have disguised, if he would, the fact that he was thorough. By a natural tendency the "Stand-Patters" drew closer together. Similarly the various elements which followed Roosevelt tended to combine. Already some of these were beginning to be called "Insurgents," but this name did not frighten them nor did it shame them back into the fold of the orthodox Republicans. As Roosevelt continued his fight for reclamation, conservation, health, and pure foods, and governmental control of the great monopolies, the opposition to him, on the part of the capitalists affected, grew more intense. What wonder that these men, realizing at last that their unlimited privileges would be taken away from them, resented their deprivation. The privileged cla.s.ses in England have not welcomed the suggestion that their great landed estates shall be cut up, nor can we expect that the American dukes and marquises of oil and steel and copper and transportation should look forward with meek acquiescence to their own extinction.
Nevertheless, there is no politics in politics, and so the gray wolves who ran the Republican Party, knowing that Roosevelt, and not themselves, had the determining popular support of the country, were too wary to block him entirely as the Democrats had done under Cleveland. They let his bills go through, but with more evident reluctance, only after bitter fighting. And as they were nearly all church members in good standing, we can imagine that they prayed the Lord to hasten the day when this pestilent marplot in the White House should retire from office. Trusting Roosevelt so far as to believe that he would stand by his pledge not to be a candidate in 1908, they cast about for a person of their own stripe whom they could make the country accept.
But Roosevelt himself felt too deeply involved in the cause of Reform, which he had been pushing for seven years, to allow his successor to be dictated by the Stand-Patters. So he sought among his a.s.sociates in the Cabinet for the member who, judging by their work together, would most loyally carry on his policies, and at length he decided upon William H. Taft, his Secretary of War. "Root would make the better President, but Taft would be the better candidate," Theodore wrote to an intimate, and that opinion was generally held in Washington and elsewhere. Mr. Root had so conducted the Department of State, since the death of John Hay, that many good judges regarded him as the ablest of all the Secretaries of that Department, and Roosevelt himself went even farther. "Root," he said to me, "is the greatest intellectual force in American public life since Lincoln." But in his career as lawyer, which brought him to the head of the American Bar, he had been attorney for powerful corporations, and that being the time when the Government was fighting the Corporations, it was not supposed that his candidacy would be popular. So Taft was preferred to him.
The Republican Machine accepted Taft as a candidate with composure, if not with enthusiasm. Anyone would be better than Roosevelt in the eyes of the Machine and its supporters, and perhaps they perceived in Secretary Taft qualities not wholly unsympathetic. They were probably thankful, also, that Roosevelt had not demanded more. He allowed the "regulars" to choose the nominee for Vice-President, and he did not meddle with the make-up of the Republican National Committee. One of his critics, Dean Lewis, marks this as Roosevelt"s chief political blunder, because by leaving the Republican National Committee in command he virtually predetermined the policy of the next four years.
Only a very strong President with equal zeal and fighting quality could win against the Committee. In 1908 he had them so docile that he might have changed their membership, and changed the rules by which elections were governed if he had so willed, but, just as before the election of 1904, Roosevelt had doubted his own popularity in the country, so now he missed his chance because he did not wish to seem to wrest from the unwilling Machine powers which it lost no time in using against him.
The campaign never reached a dramatic crisis. Mr. Bryan, the Democratic candidate, who still posed as the Boy Orator of the Platte, although he had pa.s.sed forty-eight years of age, made a spirited canva.s.s, and when the votes were counted he gained more than a million and a third over the total for Judge Parker in 1904. But Mr. Taft won easily by a million and a quarter votes.
Between election and inauguration an ominous disillusion set in.
The Rooseveltians had taken it for granted that the new President would carry on the policies of the old; more than that, the impression prevailed among them that the high officials of the Roosevelt Administration, including some members of his Cabinet, would be retained, but when Inauguration Day came, it appeared that Mr. Taft had chosen a new set of advisers, and he denied that he had given any one reason to believe that he would do otherwise.