Theodore Rex (136 page)

104
The United States acknowledged
For TR’s wistfulness regarding Canada, see Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 334.

105
This was the only
TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 21, 65–66, 109; see also TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 335–36.

106
Roosevelt could claim
Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 72; TR,
Letters
, vol. 2, 1209, 1186–87; Kenton J. Clymer,
John Hay: The Gentleman as Diplomat
(Ann Arbor, 1975), 177–79. See also David H. Burton, “Theodore Roosevelt and His English Correspondents: A Special Relationship of Friends,”
Transactions of the American Philosophical Society
, new series, vol. 63, pt. 2 (1973): 39–42.

107
Now there was this new
David McCullough,
The Path Between the Seas
(New York, 1977), 256–59.

108
Roosevelt privately favored
Allan Nevins,
Henry White: Thirty Years of American Diplomacy
(New York, 1930), 156.

109
The stupendous task
TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 273; Senator W. A. Harris to John Tyler Morgan, 29 Oct. 1901 (JTM); TR,
Public Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Governor
(Albany, 1899–1900), 298; TR,
Letters
, vol. 3, 52; Holger Herwig,
Politics of Frustration: The United States in German Naval Planning, 1889–1941
(Boston, 1976), 70; Marks,
Velvet on Iron
, 5–6.

110
Even so, Panama
McCullough,
Path Between the Seas
, 264–65; Campbell,
Great Britain and the U.S.
, 71.

111
That reluctant appendix
Review of Reviews
, Sept. 1901; TR,
Autobiography
, 528–30;
The New York Times
, 16 Sept. 1901. The first-cited periodical almost wistfully contemplated the day when the United States “should come into full authority” in Panama. “That isthmus is of no practical value to the Republic of Colombia.… It would be to our advantage to purchase [it] at a fair price.” The author of these words was TR’s friend and adviser Albert Shaw.

112
THE ALLEGHENY FOOTHILLS
Olean, City of Natural Advantages
(illustrated commercial guidebook, 1889, NYPL);
WPA Guide to New York
(1940); Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 1, 28, and vol. 2, 271–99.

113
“The party of”
Qu. in Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 2, 250. The following account of the rise of the trusts prior to 16 Sept. 1901 is based on ibid., vol. 2, 307–37; Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, 6–10; Fine,
Laissez-Faire;
Hans B. Thorelli,
Federal Antitrust Policy
(Baltimore, 1955); and Naomi Lamoreaux,
The Great Merger Movement in American Business, 1895–1904
(New York, 1985).

114
His profits were
Faulkner,
Decline of Laissez-Faire
, 167–77; Lamoreaux,
Great Merger Movement
, 159; Charles W. McCurdy, “The
Knight
Sugar Decision of
1895 and the Modernization of American Corporation Law,
1869–1903,”
Business History Review Index
, autumn 1979. For a detailed study of the Sherman Act, see Thorelli,
Federal Antitrust Policy
. For statistics showing the pace of business combination prior to 1901, see Ralph L. Nelson,
Merger Movements in American Industry, 1895–1956
(Princeton, N.J., 1959).

115
In 1898
,
there
Olivier Zunz,
Making America Corporate, 1870–1920
(Chicago, 1990), 68.

116
Ideologically, Roosevelt
Nelson,
Merger Movements
, 33–34, 37; Thorelli,
Federal Antitrust Policy
, 411–16. For TR’s attitude toward the trusts, see, e.g., TR,
Letters
, vol. 2, 1400, 1493–94 (comments of John M. Blum); vol. 3, 122, 159–60; and TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 315.

117
He saw “grave dangers”
This opinion was shared by most turn-of-the-century economists (Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, 53). For revisionist views, see Alfred P. Chandler, Jr.,
The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in American Business
(Cambridge, Mass., 1977), and Albro Martin,
James J. Hill and the Opening of the Northwest
(New York, 1976). Martin helps demolish the “Robber Baron” cliché of earlier writers. Elsewhere, he views equably the tendency of a modern, multi-unit corporation to operate beyond government control (“Uneasy Partners: Government-Business Relations in 20th Century American History,”
Prologue
11 [summer
1979]).
It was this antidemocratic tendency, not the growth of trusts per se, that alarmed TR in 1901.

118
America was no longer
See H. T. Newcomb, “The Recent Great Railway Combinations,”
Review of Reviews
, Aug. 1901. By now, nearly all the railroads had been consolidated into the hands of a half-dozen operators (Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, 7).

119
According to a
Lewis L. Gould,
The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
(Lawrence, Kans.,
1991), 28;
Thorelli,
Federal Antitrust Policy
, 255n; Ray Stannard Baker, “John Pierpont Morgan,”
McClure’s
, Oct. 1901; New York
Herald
, 16 Sept. 1901.

120
roosevelt liked morgan
TR,
Letters
, vol. 1, 58; vol. 2, 1238, 1450; and vol. 3, 42; Herbert L. Satterlee,
J. Pierpont Morgan
(New York,
1975), 363;
Lewis Corey,
The House of Morgan
(New York, 1975), 253.

121
Leyland Steamship Lines
Baker, “John Pierpont Morgan.” This purchase, made in the summer of 1901, sent shock waves of apprehension through London’s financial community. Morgan sought to soothe local stockbrokers by protesting, “America is good enough for me.” William Jennings Bryan’s
Commoner
quipped, “Whenever he doesn’t like it, he can give it back to us” (qu. in Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol.
2, 355)
.

122
Control, indeed, was
William H. Harbaugh,
The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt
, rev. ed. (New York,
1975), 157–58;
Baker, “John Pierpont Morgan”;
The New York Times
, 31 Mar. 1913; Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, 14; Faulkner,
Decline of Laissez-Faire
, 38, 374;
Review of Reviews
, Apr. 1901.

123
To his mind
TR,
Autobiography
, 439–40; Chandler,
Visible Hand
, 175.

124
“The vast individual”
TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 331–32.

125
“I owe the public”
Corey,
House of Morgan
, 301.

126
If they were
Ibid.; Lincoln Steffens, “The Overworked President,”
McClure’s
18.6 (Apr. 1902). The latter article describes the United States government in terms of a trust much larger than United States Steel, with “the equivalent of a capital, not of a hundred millions, but a hundred billions,” benefiting some seventy-six million stockholders—in effect, the greatest business organization in the world.

127
elsewhere in the train
Kohlsaat,
From McKinley
, 100–101.

128
at four minutes
past
Buffalo Express
, 17 Sept. 1901.

129
the steep climb
The New York Times
and New York
Herald
, 17 Sept. 1901.

130
Boys, youths, and old
Photographs and text in Peter Roberts,
Anthracite Coal Communities: A Study of the Demography, the Social, Educational, and Moral Life of the Anthracite Regions
(New York, 1904); John Mitchell, “The Mine Worker’s Life and Aims,”
Cosmopolitan
, Oct. 1901.

131
Roosevelt knew that
Mitchell, “Mine Worker’s,”
passim;
Roberts,
Anthracite Communities
, 15; David Montgomery, “American Labor, 1865–1902: The Early Industrial Era,”
Monthly Labor Review
99.7 (July 1976).

132
These boys
John R. Commons et al.,
History of Labor in the United States, 1896–1932
(New York, 1935), vol. 3, 402–5; Roberts,
Anthracite Communities, passim;
Harold W. Aurand, “Social Motivation of the Anthracite Mine Workers: 1900–1920,”
Labor History
18 (summer 1977).

133
Roosevelt understood
As early as 1897, in his review of Brooks Adams’s
The Law of Civilization and Decay
, TR had publicly declared that the poverty-stricken mass “constitutes a standing menace, not merely to our property, but to our existence” (TR,
Works
, vol. 14, 135). By 1901, fewer than 4 percent of United States workers were unionized, and the cost of living was rising at a steady 7 percent. Faulkner,
Decline of Laissez-Faire
, 280, 252–54.

134
Trade-union membership
Gould,
Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt
, 34–35; TR,
Works
, vol. 16, 509; George F. Baer, “Statement Regarding the Anthracite Strike,” 10 June 1902 (GWP); Robert J. Cornell,
The Anthracite Coal Strike of 1902
(Washington, D.C., 1957), 54–57.

135
Roosevelt had been
See TR,
Letters
, vol. 1, 100–101; Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 733; TR,
Works
, vol. 15, 331. See Howard L. Hurwitz,
Theodore Roosevelt and Labor in New York State, 1880–1900
(New York, 1943), for a critical review of TR’s prepresidential labor policies.

136
PILLARS OF HEMLOCK
Now Elk State Forest.

137
Roosevelt was more prone
TR,
Letters
, vol. 1, 122; Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 382–85; TR,
Diaries of Boyhood and Youth
(New York, 1928), 247.

138
Qui plantavit curabit
“He who has planted will preserve.”

139
I am sorry
Morris,
Rise of Theodore Roosevelt
, 48;
WPA Guide to Pennsylvania
(1940);
World’s Work
, June and Nov. 1901;
The Forester
7 (1901), passim; Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 1, 128; Michael Frome,
The Forest Service
(New York, 1971), 16.

140
Descent via Emporium
TR,
Autobiography
, 325; Frome,
Forest Service
, chap. 1,
passim
.

141
A town sign
Morris,
Edith Kermit Roosevelt
, 31; Frome,
Forest Service
, 9; Ray Stannard Baker, “What the U.S. Steel Corporation Really Is,”
McClure’s
, Nov. 1901.

142
To him
,
conservation
Stephen R. Fox,
John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement
(Boston, 1981), 108–9; TR, “How I Became a Progressive,”
Outlook
, Oct. 1912. See also TR,
Letters
, vol. 2, 1421–22 (to the National Irrigation Congress, 1900), and TR,
Autobiography
, chap. 11. For the equally ominous state of the nation’s fauna in 1901, see Maximilian Foster, “American Game Preserves,”
Munsey’s
, June 1901, and John S. Wise, “The Awakening Concerning Game,”
Review of Reviews
, Nov. 1901. Michael J. Lacey’s “The Mysteries of Earth-Making Dissolve: A Study of Washington’s Intellectual Community and the Origins of American Environmentalism in the Late Nineteenth Century” (Ph.D. diss., George Washington University, 1979) shows that the conservation movement was in fact some twelve years old, and coming into full philosophical flower in September 1901. But the flower blushed unseen by all but very few. It remained for TR, as President, to popularize this philosophy and make it government policy.

143
IT WAS NEARLY
time
Washington
Evening Star
, 16 Sept. 1901. New York
World
and
Chicago Tribune
, 17 Sept. 1901.

144
He felt at home
Leopold,
Elihu Root
, 9, 18; Jessup,
Elihu Root
, vol. 2, 503. For
another example of TR’s willingness to identify himself with Root’s conservative rhetoric, see his remark at the Minnesota State Fair: “It is probably true that the large majority of the fortunes that now exist in this country have been amassed not by injuring our people, but as an incident to the conferring of great benefits upon the community” (TR,
Works
, vol.
15, 332)
.

145
More conservative rhetoric
New York
World
and
The Washington Post
, 17 Sept. 1901; H. Wayne Morgan,
William McKinley and His America
(Syracuse, 1963), 249.

146
McKinley had chosen
For a profile of the American conservative at the turn of the century, see Mowry,
Era of Theodore Roosevelt
, 38–45. See also James Weinstein,
The Corporate Ideal in the Liberal State
(Boston, 1969), and Norman Wilensky, “Conservatives in the Progressive Era,”
University of Florida Monographs
, no. 25 (1965).

147
They were accustomed
The official letter-books of Gage, Hay, and Knox, e.g., are replete with acknowledgments of favors received. Sullivan,
Our Times
, vol. 3, 204; Lewis L. Gould,
Reform and Regulation: American Politics, 1900–1916
(New York, 1978), 18.