VI.

Second Term as President

A.

Domestic Affairs

Roosevelt’s second administration opened in an already matured atmosphere of domestic reform. The nation faced massive problems involving basic government policy on such issues as food, railroads, and the public domain. Roosevelt was eager to push for conservation of natural resources and for curbing great private fortunes through income and inheritance taxes, but he was still reluctant to increase government controls over business.

A.1.

Pure Food

At a Senate investigation in 1899, Roosevelt had denounced the poorly processed beef that his soldiers had been given to eat during the Spanish-American War and said he would as soon have eaten his old hat. However, meat preparation, like all food and drug preparations, seemed safe from government intervention. Investigations focused on patent medicines and helped stimulate congressional action in favor of a pure food and drugs bill. The meat-packers were exposed in the Upton Sinclair novel The Jungle (1906).

The novel caused discomfort because of its vivid description of unsanitary meat handling. Roosevelt, who had earlier believed a report that meat was being safely processed, sent another commission to Chicago and released to the press a report highly critical of the meat-packers’ methods. Succeeding agitation during 1906 helped Congress to pass a bill providing for meat inspection. The controversy also greatly aided the success of the fight to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act, which prohibited the manufacture of unsafe foods or drugs.

A.2.

Railroad Regulation

A bill for revitalizing the Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was long overdue. Unfair business practices that the commission could not control not only led to unjust rates but also threatened public safety. Roosevelt was suspicious of unbridled free enterprise, but he opposed Bryan’s demand that the railroads be taken over by the government. Roosevelt was also unsympathetic to the aggressive campaign of United States Senator Robert M. La Follette of Wisconsin to discredit the railroads’ policies.

In 1905 Roosevelt urged “government supervision and regulation of charges by the railroads,” although he also warned against “radical” legislation. Representative William P. Hepburn of Idaho became his congressional spokesman for a moderate regulatory measure. Reformers and journalistic supporters helped him overcome strong conservative resistance to what was hailed as a major precedent-setting achievement. As a farsighted conservative noted, “It saved us from government ownership.”

The Hepburn Act of 1906 authorized the Interstate Commerce Commission to determine and prescribe maximum rates and to order the railroads to conform to them within 30 days. It also extended the regulatory powers of the commission to sleeping car, pipeline, and express companies. Four years later it was extended to telephone and telegraph companies.

A.3.

Conservation

One of Roosevelt’s major interests was public land. Although he learned much about it from Chief U.S. Forester Gifford Pinchot, his own studies in natural history and his travels about the country convinced him of the need to preserve the country’s natural heritage. Forest, mineral, and water controls seemed to him basic to guarantee the nation’s resources. Giving more attention to the problem than any previous president, he set aside some 60 million hectares (150 million acres) of public lands to protect them from exploitation by private interests. He later added 34 million hectares (85 million acres) in Alaska and the Northwest to the public domain. The Reclamation Act of 1902 established irrigation and other services for Western lands. One of the many tangible monuments to his program was the Roosevelt Dam, built by the Reclamation Service, near Phoenix, Arizona. Roosevelt’s regard for natural resources and other aesthetic and practical aspects of conservation inspired him in 1908 to convene a “Congress of Governors” of all the states, plus many experts and legislators, to discuss national policy. Some members of Congress were annoyed by his free spending, which they were required to support, and sought to make political capital of the fact. Nevertheless the session was a landmark in conservation.

A.4.

Muckrakers

Roosevelt was troubled by the spirit of some reformers who had amassed both reputation and followers and whose goals, it seemed to him, could only bring the nation to socialism. Roosevelt detested socialism, a system that advocates state ownership of natural resources, basic industries, banking and credit facilities, and public utilities. His dissatisfaction reached its height with the publication in Cosmopolitan magazine of the series “The Treason of the Senate,” by David Graham Phillips. United States senators were then, under law, chosen by their state legislatures, rather than by popular vote, and often represented special conservative interests. Phillips drew powerful individual portraits of the senators and explained their deeds in terms that stirred wide resentment. It also provided information that in the future would help the campaign, initiated in 1913 by the passage of the 17th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, for popular election of senators.

In 1906, while Phillips’s series was still running, Roosevelt delivered a speech, first privately at a gathering of journalists and then publicly, on April 14, at the dedication of a government building in Washington, D.C. Roosevelt denounced the writer, who seemed to him to court sensationalism for its own sake and “... who could look no way but downward with the muckrake in his hand ... (and) continued to rake himself the filth of the floor.” Conservatives were pleased by the president’s rejection of the reformers. The reformers themselves, however, took the term “muckraker” as a badge of honor.

A.5.

Panic of 1907

Roosevelt’s grasp of economics was weak and his regard for it small. His moral approach to individuals and industries sufficed for him. He asked Congress to establish the Department of Commerce and Labor in 1903 but did not make it a major instrument of policy formulation or government action. The banking and stock-market systems were beyond his interest or experience. The so-called money panic of 1907 occurred because banks were then totally dependent on their own currency resources. They could thus be jeopardized by rumors or special financial crises, despite their good financial condition. There were no preparations, official or otherwise, for such an event.

The fall of the Knickerbocker Bank, a large, powerful bank, in New York City under such circumstances affected a large number of smaller institutions and set off a panic that threatened to throw the country into a deep depression. Roosevelt’s leadership in the crisis was minimal. He gave his secretary of the treasury, George B. Cortelyou, a free hand. Cortelyou worked with a group of financiers, headed by J. P. Morgan, to support threatened financial establishments. One result of this cooperation was the purchase of the Tennessee Coal and Iron Company by the U.S. Steel Corporation—dominated by the Morgan interests—an act that some reformers looked on with great misgivings.

The government’s offer to place money in approved banks facing difficulties stopped the panic. However, it did not examine the reasons for the panic, reimburse losers, or provide machinery for making sure another panic did not occur. The fact that so powerful an institution as the Knickerbocker Bank could fail for lack of currency, even though it owned sound assets, made an impact on congressional conservatives. They perceived that no institution was secure simply by virtue of size. The Aldrich-Vreeland Currency Act of 1908 was a stopgap measure intended to support unstable banks by enabling them to issue circulating notes under particular conditions.

B.

Foreign Policy

Roosevelt still believed that powerful nations survived and weak ones died. He had faith in the virtues of war, and continued to assume that the United States was playing a noble mediating role among fighting or lesser-developed nations.

B.1.

Treaty of Portsmouth

In an age that saw ships as the major vehicle of foreign policy, Roosevelt carefully watched naval developments in the far corners of the world. He also thought it necessary to balance the interests of powers that could challenge or curb U.S. influence abroad. Roosevelt suspected Russia’s power and designs, and he admired and respected Japan’s forceful military development. His respect was confirmed during the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905, when Japan soundly defeated the Russians in several battles. The Japanese, victorious but financially exhausted, agreed to Roosevelt’s offer to negotiate a peace treaty. The Treaty of Portsmouth, ending the war, was hailed as a triumph of Roosevelt’s diplomacy, and in 1906 Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

B.2.

Gentleman’s Agreement

Roosevelt’s policy toward Japan was a combination of courtesy and show of strength. In that same year, San Francisco ordered the segregation of all Japanese, Chinese, and Korean children in a separate school, greatly offending recently victorious Japan. Roosevelt was deeply disturbed and convinced the local school board to withdraw their decision. In exchange, he discussed with Japanese ambassadors an immigration policy that would better control the entrance of their nationals into the United States. The so-called Gentleman’s Agreement of 1907 stopped most Japanese immigration. Although it did not wholly please the Japanese government, it permitted Japan to save face by voluntarily restraining its people from seeking entry into the United States.

B.3.

Mediation in European Affairs

Roosevelt’s attitude toward European nations was modified by what he called their more “advanced” nature. Otherwise, his goal was the same: to maintain a balance among the powers and to advance U.S. interests.

Although he was not interested in disarmament, Roosevelt developed an early interest in reduction of armaments and conducted various negotiations in these connections. He also encouraged the convening of the Second Hague Conference on peace in 1907. However, he permitted the Russian tsar the satisfaction of calling the meeting.

B.4.

Algeciras Conference

In 1905 German Kaiser William II startled European governments by visiting Morocco and assuring its sultan of his support of Moroccan autonomy and of its right to trade on equal terms with various nations, including Germany. This action was widely interpreted as a challenge to France, which, with British support, believed Morocco to be in its sphere of influence. War seemed possible.

With German encouragement, Roosevelt took the initiative in calling a conference of nations on the Moroccan question in 1906 and sent a U.S. delegate, Henry White. This action aroused some criticism from isolationists at home because it involved the United States in foreign affairs. Roosevelt himself felt that he had prevented a general war when the conference found a solution to the conflict.

B.5.

Great White Fleet

Roosevelt thought it wise to implement diplomacy with displays of U.S. power. In 1907 he ordered a world tour by the U.S. fleet. It was intended particularly to impress the Japanese, who, however, received the Great White Fleet, as it was called, with enthusiasm.

At home, Roosevelt continued to urge a stronger and more efficient U.S. Army. When army officers protested against an order to keep fit, Roosevelt himself led a party on a 160-km (100-mi) ride in inclement weather to show how little was being asked.

C.

Election of 1908

Roosevelt could almost certainly have won renomination and reelection to the presidency in 1908, but he honored his pledge not to run again. William Howard Taft had won his full confidence as a loyal and competent supporter of his ideas. Roosevelt was not disturbed by the criticism of labor leaders that Taft was an “injunction judge” quick to prevent effective labor action. Roosevelt believed that labor required the same curbing as capital when its leaders were “bad” or “wrong,” as, in his view, they had been in several major cases during his administration. Roosevelt, therefore, strongly and effectively backed Taft for the nomination and subsequently saw him elected to the presidency.