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TRIUMPHS 
 
 ROOSEVELT 
 ADMINISTRATION 
 
 BY 
 
 JOHN A. HOWI^AND 
 
 WITH INTRODUCTIONS BY 
 
 CHARLES DICK 
 
 [senator from OHIO] 
 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW 
 
 rspNAfpR FROM NEW YOKK] 
 
 Chicago: 
 republican publishing co. 
 
 1904 
 
c^ 
 
 LIBRA*? V <yf OONGPPSS 
 Two GoDies Serfflved 
 
 JUiM 23 -1904 
 Ni Cooyrteht Entry 
 
 CLASS X XXO. No. 
 
 90 / S n 
 
 * COPY B ' 
 
 Copyright, 1904, by 
 W. M. HANDY 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 BY CHARLES DICK, SENATOR FROM OHIO 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt will go down in his- 
 tory as the man who has broken many 
 (precedents in as thorough a manner as 
 he is reported to have broken "bucking 
 bronchos" in the West. He was nomi- 
 nated for vice-president against his desire 
 and over his vigorous protest. He was 
 then governor of New York, an office to 
 which he was elected on his war record at 
 a time when the military enthusiasm grow- 
 ing out of the war with Spain remained 
 unabated, and under conditions which did 
 not argue any too well for Republican 
 success. As it was, the margin of victory 
 was narrow. In the majority of instances 
 in which a New Yorker has come to the 
 presidential chair it has been by the death 
 of the man who was elected president, and 
 since the Republican party came into 
 existence it has occurred twice through the 
 
 3 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 premeditated death of an Ohio man elected 
 president. 
 
 On that sad day on which his lamented 
 and beloved predecessor passed away and 
 Theodore Roosevelt took the oath of office 
 as president, he promised faithfully to 
 carry out the policies of McKinley. It is 
 because he has been true to that pledge 
 *ihat he will be nominated for president by 
 acclamation in the Republican National 
 Convention at Chicago. 
 
 He is the first accidental president who 
 has been so honored, and he promises to 
 break precedent again by being his own 
 successor. Our presidents have been sol- 
 diers or lawyers, and Roosevelt is no ex- 
 ception to that rule, though his military 
 career was only a passing incident in a 
 busy life, and his fame was won in an 
 engagement which would have been count- 
 ed one of the lesser battles of our civil war. 
 That was not his fault, however, and he 
 did the best he could. 
 
 He has been distinctively a man of 
 public affairs. Politics has been his voca- 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 tion and literature his avocation. In the 
 twenty-five years since he attained his ma- 
 jority he has held office seventeen years 
 and in addition was the unsuccessful 
 Republican candidate for mayor of New 
 York when he was twenty-eight years of 
 age. 
 
 His first appearance in national politics 
 was that day in June, 1884, when he 
 walked down the center aisle of the con- 
 vention held at Chicago arm in arm with 
 George William Curtis representing the 
 State of New York after he had made the 
 fight which cost President Arthur the sup- 
 port of his own state. He was then a 
 youth of twenty-six years. 
 
 His contributions to literature constitute 
 a small library. No man, therefore, has 
 been more in the public eye in the last 
 quarter of a century. In that time he has 
 played many parts and has played them 
 all remarkably well. In all of them he has 
 displayed certain characteristics which 
 have come to be known as distinctively 
 Rooseveltian. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 He is the man of action, the man of 
 jtrong elemental passions held under strict 
 control, the man who always has a definite 
 aim and is determined to bring about re- 
 sults. He has the spirit of the pioneer 
 and will hew a pathway of his own if he 
 does not find one at hand. Where there 
 is the will, he will find the way. Thus he 
 has been enabled to do things and in all he 
 has done he has been actuated by high 
 moral motives. 
 
 An aggravated and long drawn out 
 strike in Pennsylvania had paralyzed the 
 anthracite coal business and caused much 
 suffering. Winter was approaching and 
 there was prospect of untold misery be- 
 cause of the failure of fuel. The consti- 
 tution afforded no remedy and the state 
 was powerless. The President was equal 
 to the occasion. He went outside the con- 
 stitution and by virtue of his position as 
 first citizen of the land settled the strike. 
 The country applauded and the trouble 
 has not recurred. 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 He found an irritating boundary dispute 
 with irresponsible neighbors in the North- 
 west which had vexed us for years. He 
 adopted a common sense plan which he was 
 told was impracticable, and lo ! the bound- 
 ary dispute was settled and so satisfac- 
 torily that while both sides claimed a 
 victory, our interests were fully protected. 
 
 He incurred displeasure by summoning 
 Congress in special session to enact legis- 
 lation demanded by our interest and our 
 honor in order to carry into effect a com- 
 mercial treaty with Cuba, failure to enact 
 which, he declared, "would come peril- 
 ously near a repudiation of the pledged 
 faith of the nation. ' * The pledge was kept 
 and that Cuban question is heard of no 
 more. 
 
 He brought the machinery of law to bear 
 to oust the Northern Securities Company. 
 It was not claimed that this merger oper- 
 ated oppressively or that the interests of 
 the people were suffering therefrom, but 
 the President declared the law was being 
 violated and thought it was unsafe to trust 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 so much authority in any one set of hands. 
 The courts sustained the President and 
 gave new vitality to the anti-trust law. 
 The supremacy of law was vindicated 
 when applied to tremendous corporate 
 interests as well as when directed against 
 the most indigent offender. 
 
 He has been equally vigorous and 
 equally successful in his foreign policy. 
 He has been firm and forceful whether 
 dealing with petty misrule and organized 
 anarchy in San Domingo, urging the just 
 claims of Americans against the Sultan of 
 Turkey, demanding the open door in Man- 
 churia, or resisting European pretensions 
 in South America. He has fixed more 
 firmly than ever before the over-lordship 
 of the United States in the Western hemi- 
 sphere and written the Monroe Doctrine 
 anew as the regulator of foreign interfer- 
 ence in the affairs of the Americas. 
 
 He was not afraid to make use of the 
 opportunity to advance national interests 
 in Panama. He followed precedent and 
 acted within the strict letter of law and 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 treaty, and by his wise foresight and 
 prompt action insured the early commence- 
 ment of the Panama Canal. The nations 
 of the world approved his course, and 
 American prestige abroad has been in- 
 creased. 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt is an American of 
 Americans, broad and catholic in every- 
 thing. He is healthy, robust and exuber- 
 ant, and a man of universal interests. 
 There is no branch of learning which does 
 not attract him. His reading has been 
 omnivorous. He is therefore interested in 
 all men who have a message to give and 
 he extracts the kernel from every man he 
 meets. He is sometimes compared to 
 Emperor William II. The Kaiser has 
 reigned fifteen years and in that time the 
 unexpected has always been looked for but 
 never came. So the unexpected has been 
 predicted from Roosevelt, but he has dis- 
 appointed such anticipations. He is im- 
 petuosity under splendid restraint. Clean 
 himself, he demands the same virtue in his 
 subordinates. An immaculate official 
 
 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 record will not protect an official whom he 
 discovers to be morally unclean. He makes 
 no attempt to conceal his convictions, once 
 fixed they are firmly held, for he believes 
 in standing by his principles. He has high 
 standards of civic righteousness and is a 
 crusader for all that is clean and whole- 
 some. He is unlike the Knight of La 
 Mancha for he never runs at windmills. 
 Many reformers are not practical. His 
 much living outdoors has strengthened in 
 him the grace of practicality and common 
 sense. He has lived close to nature and has 
 been in close touch with human nature. 
 He therefore knows men, a knowledge 
 which has served him well. 
 
 He is not unmindful of the value of or- 
 ganization, but relies much on appeals to 
 moral sentiment. Since Andrew Jackson 
 no such aggressive and forceful personality 
 has occupied the White House. 
 
 10 
 
WILLIAM H. TAFT, 
 Secretary of War. 
 
PROGRESS DURING PRESIDENT 
 ROOSEVELT'S ADMINISTRATION. 
 
 BY CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, SENATOR FROM NEW YORK 
 
 There have been glorious decades in our 
 national story from 1860 to 1900— saving 
 the Union, emancipation, reconstruction, 
 the resumption of specie payments— all of 
 which loosened the energies of the Ameri- 
 can people and bent American genius and 
 industry to the development of our re- 
 sources. The farseeing mind and the 
 courage of our business men, the skill of 
 our artisans, our farmers and our miners, 
 have placed us in the front rank among 
 the producing nations of the world. In 
 the midst of prosperity never before 
 equaled, of employment, markets and op- 
 portunities never before possessed, we tried 
 the experiment for four years of a new 
 policy. From the ruin which involved us 
 all, we emerged, under McKinley and 
 Roosevelt. 
 
 11 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Not only that, but more —we have re- 
 paired the disasters from 1893 to 1897. 
 We have opened the closed factories and 
 mills ; we have built up new industries and 
 removed every trace of the devastations of 
 semi-free trade and unsound currency. 
 The distress from putting into legislation 
 false theories may be greater in our com- 
 mercial and industrial age than those 
 which followed in the track of armies in 
 former generations. The task of the Re- 
 publican party when it came into power 
 with McKinley and a Republican Congress 
 was to remove handicaps upon American 
 enterprise and energy and furnish the basis 
 for prosperity. The enactment of the 
 Dingley law and the gold standard of 
 value, in the wonderful results which fol- 
 lowed in the South as well as the North, 
 in the East as well as the West, was a 
 fitting close to the contribution made to the 
 greatness of our country" and the happiness 
 of our people by the Republican party 
 from 1860 to the close of the nineteenth 
 century. 
 
 12 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 . There was one other measure required 
 to enable the people to take advantage of 
 conditions brought about by the Dingley 
 tariff and the gold standard. A large pro- 
 portion of our business men and corpora- 
 tions had gone down under loads of debt 
 which could never be lifted during the 
 panic times from 1893 to 1897. We cleared 
 the way for them to take advantage of the 
 situation by the enactment of a general 
 bankruptcy law, a law which has not been 
 a vital necessity at the close of any Re- 
 publican administration. It is the best 
 tribute to the prosperity resulting from 
 the measures which came after 1896, and 
 to the inherent honesty of American busi- 
 ness men that nine-tenths of those who 
 were compelled to take advantage of this 
 remedial measure, have since, in their 
 abundant success, paid principal and in- 
 terest of their indebtedness. 
 
 But the nineteenth century closed, not 
 only with phenomenal prosperity, not only 
 with the balance of trade in our favor 
 greater than the accumulated sum of all 
 our previous history, not only with the 
 
 13 
 
INTRODUCTIOX 
 
 farmer, the 'manufaeturer, the artisan, and 
 the worker happy and hopeful, but with 
 all this accomplished notwithstanding a 
 foreign war. In ninety days the conflict 
 was over, and the republic was facing new 
 and untried problems. It had the unrest 
 of Cuba which had lasted for three hun- 
 dred years upon its hands, the poverty of 
 Porto Rico and chronic insurrections in the 
 Philippines, but to-day Cuba holds an hon- 
 orable place among nations, Porto Rico is 
 lifted into healthful and prosperous condi- 
 tions, iDsurrections have ceased in the 
 Philippines, and their ten millions of peo- 
 ple, with singular unanimity, are eagerly 
 acquiring American education, liberty and 
 law. This has been brought about by 
 President Roosevelt. 
 
 The problem of four hundred years 
 seemed about to be settled and the two 
 oceans united by the canal across the 
 isthmus. "With the growth of our Pacific 
 Coast States and the possession of our 
 islands across the ocean and the trade of the 
 Orient, the building of this canal became 
 
 14 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 a necessity of paramount importance. All 
 other measures dwindled into insignificance 
 compared with the opening of this high- 
 way. The situation was intense and the 
 changes dramatic. Colombia proposed to 
 the United States a treaty called the Hay- 
 Herran Treaty, naming the terms of the 
 concession and asking for its ratification 
 by the United States. The French Canal 
 Company conceded to the modification of 
 their proposal which our commission had 
 recommended. The accomplishment of the 
 desired result depended only upon the for- 
 mality of the ratification by the Colombian 
 Congress of the treaty proposed by their 
 dictator and accepted by the United States 
 when he had under the explicit terms of 
 their constitution full powder to make it. 
 
 But the dictator, now President, had 
 Congress called together for that purpose 
 and saw a superb opportunity of a hold-up 
 in the necessities of the United States. Day 
 after day the w^arning went forth from 
 Bogota from the representatives of the 
 Department of Panama and to Bogota 
 
 15 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 from Panama itself, that if the treaty was 
 rejected, Panama would reassert the inde- 
 pendence which had been violently taken 
 from her eighteen years ago. The Colom- 
 bian Congress, in their territorial isolation 
 and subordination to their dictator and 
 President, failed to comprehend the grav- 
 ity of the situation. "While this treaty, the 
 most important document in their history, 
 was pending in their Senate and House, 
 they adjourned for a day to have read to 
 them the sonnets which had been written 
 by one of their poetic deputies. 
 
 The occasion, however, was not one for 
 verse to Venus, and the situation not an 
 opera bouffe, for Theodore Roosevelt was 
 President of the United States. When 
 Panama fulfilled the threat known to all 
 the world for months and successfully 
 accomplished her revolution, the President 
 acted within his constitutional privilege 
 with the directness, courage and wisdom 
 characteristic of his whole public life. He 
 was under the mandate of a law passed 
 at the last session of Congress which au- 
 
 16 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 thorized the purchase of the French canal 
 properties, which appropriated $10,000,000 
 for immediate purposes and authorized the 
 Secretary of the Treasury to borrow $130,- 
 000,000 more, which directed the President 
 to make the terms for the building of the 
 canal and then to begin. If he failed 
 within a reasonable time to secure the con- 
 cession then he was to turn to Nicaragua 
 and Costa Rica. 
 
 But without any intervention or action 
 on his part in the kaleidoscope of politics 
 common to the Latin nations of Central 
 and South America, the opportunity was 
 presented and he seized it. He might have 
 let a war go on between Panama and Co- 
 lombia. He might have commenced fruit- 
 less negotiations with Nicaragua and Costa 
 Rica. He might have transferred the whole 
 question to Congress, weakly abandoning 
 his executive responsibility, but the man- 
 date of the American people was upon him 
 to build the isthmian canal, and the Con- 
 gress, by the unanimous vote of the Sen- 
 ators and members of the House of Rep- 
 
 17 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 resentatives on the Republican side and a 
 large number of Senators and members of 
 the House on the Democratic side, have 
 affirmed the wisdom and the constitutional- 
 ity of his coui'se. 
 
 It is an interesting question: Where 
 have those of the opposition been during 
 these epoch making times, and where are 
 they now? They were against the gold 
 standard of value, and part of them are 
 still. They were against the tariff, and all 
 of them are now. They opposed our hold- 
 ing Cuba and insisted upon its imme- 
 diately receiving independence, when the 
 wisdom of McKinley said, "We will take 
 the time necessary for the Cubans to learn 
 after three hundred years of tjTanny the 
 primary lessons of representative govern- 
 ment, of liberty.^' In the mean time we 
 will, by sanitation, remove from our own 
 country the peril of yellow fever which 
 has so often come from Cuba and devas- 
 tated us. Now, they admit we were right. 
 
 They proposed free trade to Porto Rico 
 which would have pauperized her and 
 
 18 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 made her a beneficiary of the United States 
 Treasury. But the Republican majority 
 devised a tarifl: of limited operations which 
 has placed that island in conditions of 
 prosperity never before dreamed of by its 
 people. They were opposed, and are still, 
 to the retention of the Philippines, while 
 the Republican administration has sent 
 there a thousand school teachers, has spent 
 millions in opening roads, has reclaimed 
 the land from the orders upon a fair 
 understanding and adjustment and then 
 transferred it to the people under the 
 operation of our wise homestead laws. The 
 moneys spent in the Philippine Islands 
 which have been of such incalculable value 
 in the development of their resources and 
 for the employment and wealth of their 
 people have come from a taxation on them- 
 selves which has not been felt because of 
 their prosperity. Under the Spanish rule 
 all the taxes went to Spain. Under Ameri- 
 can rule all the taxes are spent upon and 
 for the people of the islands. The lessons 
 of representative government, of liberty 
 
 19 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and of law are being learned more rapidly 
 among the tribes of the archipelago than 
 among any such people ever before, and 
 the peace and happiness which prevail are 
 lessons in colonial administration to the 
 governments which have been ruling col- 
 onies for centuries. 
 
 The opposition stand for negation and 
 allegation. Instead of having a live pro- 
 gramme to present to the American people 
 which will intelligently promise an im- 
 provement of existing conditions, they are 
 looking for issues among the debris and 
 the scaffolding thrown aside by the Re- 
 publicans after their beneficent structures 
 have been completed. 
 
 Our Democratic friends admit that pros- 
 perity is greater than ever before, but they 
 say that it is not due to the protective 
 tariff, it is not due to the American mar- 
 kets for Americans, it is not due to the 
 gold standard of value, it is not due to 
 Republican policies and administrations, 
 but that God has wrought it all. 
 
 Speaking with due reverence, if this be 
 
 20 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 true, wliy is it that He gives prosperity 
 only in Republican administrations and 
 disaster under Democratic Presidents? 
 The broader and better view is that a 
 merciful Providence gives to man the 
 earth and the fulness thereof for his en- 
 joyment according to the qualities which 
 will enable him to succeed. Those qualities 
 were exhibited in every Republican ad- 
 ministration and the opposite in the only 
 two Democratic administrations we remem- 
 ber, the one from 1856 to 1860, the other 
 from 1893 to 1897. The founder of the 
 great banking house of Rothschilds was 
 asked to what he ascribed his phenomenal 
 success in the terrible competitions of his 
 period when he started from such humble 
 beginnings. His answer was, "I never 
 would have business transactions with un- 
 lucky men. ' ' Then why should the Ameri- 
 can people think for a moment of aban- 
 doning conditions of unusual prosperity 
 for partnership with the hard luck party? 
 They say the President is rash. He was 
 rash, when, as Assistant Secretary of the 
 
 21 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 Na^y, lie paralyzed the bureau officers by 
 ordering the na\^ to burn powder in target 
 practice. But that rashness materialized 
 in the highest conservatism when those 
 gunners, under Dewey, sank the fleet at 
 Manila Bay in fifty minutes, and Cervera's 
 fleet at Santiago in sixty. All of his ac- 
 quaintances said he was rash when he 
 threw up a comfortable berth in the Navy 
 Department to take upon himself the perils 
 of the campaign in Cuba ; that he was rash 
 when, at the head of his regiment, he 
 encountered volleys of Spanish bullets in 
 battle, but that rashness displayed the 
 qualities which make the American people 
 both trust and love him. 
 
 He has probed deeply the great depart- 
 ments of the government and prosecuted 
 and convicted those of his own household 
 of faith who were found guilty. He en- 
 forced the law when dire predictions of 
 disaster were made, and by doing so lost 
 the favor of some of the ablest and strong- 
 est of our financial leaders, but the Su- 
 preme Court has sustained his action and 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 the markets have rebounded with that 
 phenomenal rise in the securities affected 
 which demonstrates the judgment of the 
 investors of the country. 
 
 The completion of the isthmian canal 
 will bring the cities on the Atlantic coast 
 nearer the Orient than the ports of con- 
 tinental Europe or Great Britain. Its 
 construction will revolutionize the com- 
 merce of the world and incalculably pro- 
 mote the position and prosperity of the 
 United States. The President's advocacy 
 of a large navy which will make us the 
 second maritime power of the world is a 
 wise and farsighted policy to meet the 
 expansion of commerce which must come 
 to us by the isthmian canal and the open 
 door from American diplomacy. To ask 
 for an open door for the surplus products 
 of American industry with neither a mer- 
 cantile marine nor battleships would be the 
 worst sort of weakness, but when the great- 
 est and strongest and richest nation of the 
 vrorld asks for an open door with a fleet 
 commensurate with its power, necessities 
 
 23 
 
INTRODUCTION 
 
 and rights, the answer will be a welcome 
 without a shot fired or the peace of the 
 world disturbed. 
 
 With a past unequalled in its splendor, 
 a present unsurpassed in its beneficence, 
 issues as clear as the sunlight and a can- 
 didate who represents better than almost 
 any man in our history the vigorous life, 
 integrity, ability and patriotism of typical 
 Americanism, the Republican party will 
 march once more to victory. 
 
 24 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 THE SCHOOLING OF A PRESIDENT. 
 
 ON the afternoon of September 14, 
 1901, Theodore Roosevelt became 
 president of the United States. He 
 had been called to that high office by a 
 tragedy. "William McKinley had been 
 stricken to his death by an assassin's hand. 
 He had just entered upon his second term 
 and the nation was at the flood of the great- 
 est tide of prosperity it had ever known. 
 Never before had the prestige of the United 
 States been so great abroad. Never before 
 had confidence in the government been so 
 secure at home. American finance was un- 
 assailable. American industry was con- 
 quering the markets of the world. Not a 
 cloud appeared on the business horizon. 
 The nation faced four years more of 
 administration certain to be free from 
 disturbing efforts to change existing con- 
 ditions. 
 
 25 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 "William McKinley's policy had brought 
 prosperity and his re-election had insured 
 it. But McKinley had been removed from 
 his high place by the malice and ignorance 
 and stupidity of anarchism, and Theodore 
 Roosevelt came to administer the affairs of 
 the nation in his stead. 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt was not a stranger 
 to the people. They knew him well, they 
 thought. They had knowTi him and ad- 
 mired him for his rugged honesty, his tire- 
 less energy, his masterful hand in public 
 administration, and his hatred of unfaith- 
 fulness in office. 
 
 The people had seen Theodore Roosevelt 
 when he was fighting his way on the plains 
 of the great West. They had had a fore- 
 sight of his vigor and executive ability 
 while he was a police commissioner in New 
 York. They had learned his devotion to 
 principle when he was a civil service com- 
 missioner. They had studied him while 
 he had served them as assistant secretary 
 of the na\y, and again a loader of a regi- 
 ment at the heights of San Juan hill in 
 
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 »' 
 
 CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW, 
 Senatox' from New York. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 the Santiago campaign. The/ had watched 
 and admired his vigorous administration 
 while he was governor of New York. His 
 dignity while he presided over the senate, 
 during the brief period that he held the 
 vice-presidential office, had impressed 
 them. 
 
 Thus endowed with the respect, the love 
 and the confidence of the people Theodore 
 Roosevelt stood in the quiet parlor of the 
 Buffalo mansion and took the oath of office 
 which made him president. A minute later 
 he had said: 
 
 ''In the hour of deep and terrible na- 
 tional bereavement I wish to state it shall 
 be my intention and endeavor to continue 
 absolutely unbroken the policy of Presi- 
 dent McKinley, for the peace and pros- 
 perity and honor of our beloved country. *' 
 
 The nation had expected the declaration 
 and it was not disappointed; and the peo- 
 ple knew that what Theodore Roosevelt 
 had promised, Theodore Roosevelt would 
 do. 
 
 37 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 It is not the purpose here to present a 
 biography of Theodore Roosevelt. It will 
 be sufficient to indicate his career in broad 
 lines ; merely to show the man as he is and 
 as he has been. His life has been like an 
 open page of a familiar book, for he has 
 been before the public for twenty years, 
 and if there is a flaw in his character the 
 people would have detected it long ago. 
 
 In 1884 Theodore Roosevelt became a 
 figure in national politics for the first time. 
 In that year he was one of the New York 
 delegates to the Republican national con- 
 vention, when he was 26 years old. He 
 took an active part in the debates and was 
 accorded a front place in the New York 
 delegation. 
 
 From 1889 until 1895 Theodore Roose- 
 velt was a member of the National Civil 
 Service Commission. He was appointed by 
 President Harrison and continued in the 
 office by President Cleveland. His reports 
 while a member of that commission gave 
 early indication of the character of the 
 man who was afterwards to hold the high- 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 est office in the gift of the nation. And it is 
 to be noted that Theodore Roosevelt as civil 
 service commissioner never said or wrote a 
 thing that Theodore Roosevelt as president 
 did not live up to. He has lived to prove 
 his own sincerity. 
 
 In 1895 Theodore Roosevelt, Frederick 
 D. Grant and Andrew D. Parker were ap- 
 pointed police commissioners of New York 
 City. When the board was organized Mr. 
 Roosevelt was chosen as its president. It 
 was as a member of the police board that 
 New York first, and the entire nation soon 
 afterwards, came to learn what manner of 
 man Theodore Roosevelt was. It is history 
 that this commission revolutionized the 
 police force of New York City and also it 
 revolutionized the methods of enforcing 
 the law. When Roosevelt became presi- 
 dent of the board of police commissioners 
 26 policemen, including one inspector and 
 five captains, were under indictments for 
 crime. The new board introduced drastic 
 reforms — so drastic that in two months 355 
 policemen, including one chief, three in- 
 
 29 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 spectors, eleven captains and eleven ser- 
 geants were removed for cause. Their 
 places were filled by new men who were 
 encouraged to do their duty by a system 
 of honorary rewards. 
 
 It had long been declared that the excise 
 laws of New York City could not be en- 
 forced. Theodore Roosevelt proved that 
 they could be. He enforced the law with 
 rigid equity to all alike. The rich saloon- 
 keeper found that his ''political pull" was 
 useless. In the first year of the Roosevelt 
 regime the police made 10,000 arrests for 
 violation of the Sunday law. Saloons, 
 gambling resorts and disorderly houses 
 were closed, tramp lodging houses abol- 
 ished, blackmailing and the protection of 
 vice eradicated. The result was that New 
 York had fewer crimes and life and prop- 
 erty were safer. 
 
 From war against vice to the war against 
 Spain was Theodore Roosevelt's next step. 
 In 1897 he was appointed assistant secre- 
 tary of the na\y, under President 'Me- 
 Kinley. It has been said that Roosevelt 
 
 30 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 won the battle of Manila in 1897, although 
 Dewey did not actually fight it until 1898. 
 This probably is unfair to Dewey and to 
 Dewey's men, but it is true that it was 
 Roosevelt's tireless energy that put 
 Dewey's fleet in condition to engage in a 
 naval battle upon the winning of which 
 depended American control of the Pacific 
 in the war with Spain. 
 
 As assistant secretary of the navy in 
 1897 Theodore Roosevelt believed that war 
 with Spain could not be avoided. His 
 counsels were not asked for and he could 
 do nothing in the negotiations to prevent 
 war. But as assistant secretary of the 
 navy, working ceaselessly and silently, with 
 all the energy of his nature he saw to it 
 that every ship in the navy was in perfect 
 condition for war — fully manned, armed, 
 equipped and supplied. It was due to this 
 tireless energy of Theodore Roosevelt, more 
 than to any other man in the government, 
 that when the war began the fleet was 
 ready. 
 
 31 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 When war did begin Theodore Roosevelt 
 left his desk to take active service. He 
 might have had a commission as colonel of 
 a regiment of volunteers; but he refused 
 it. His life on the plains of the Great West 
 had taught him where to find men who 
 could ride, who could fight and who could 
 stand fatigue and hardships. He organ- 
 ized the Rough Riders, a regiment that has 
 since been taken as a model by every nation 
 in Europe, and was content to serve as sec- 
 ond in command. 
 
 Any history of the Spanish-American 
 war will vindicate Roosevelt's judgment. 
 The part played by the Rough Riders 
 helped to decide the issues of the war. 
 Roosevelt earned his promotion to the col- 
 onelcy of that now famous regiment. It 
 was in the first fight on Cuban soil and in 
 the last. 
 
 It was Theodore Roosevelt who moved 
 the American army from Cuba to Mon- 
 tauk point, Long Island, although he did 
 not select the latter camp. After the San- 
 tiago capitulation Gen. Shafter's army was 
 
 S2 
 
HOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 ordered to retire to San Luis in the interior 
 of Cuba, where conditions were supposed 
 to be more healthful. Colonel Roosevelt at 
 once addressed an emphatic protest to Gen. 
 Shafter, declaring that one-half of the 
 American soldiers in Cuba would die of 
 fever unless moved to the north at once. 
 This protest was followed by the famous 
 '* round robin." It created intenge indig- 
 nation in the war department at Wash- 
 ington, but it had its effect. The army- 
 started north in three days. 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt's military career 
 lasted less than a year. It has been suc- 
 cinctly epitomized by Murat Halstead as 
 follows : 
 
 ''First, he foresaw as assistant secretary 
 of the navy, the war, and he dominated 
 the department to prepare for it, by find- 
 ing the warships, the coal, the powder and 
 the men. 
 
 * ' Second, he raised a regiment of incom- 
 parable mettle and quite unconquerable. 
 
 *' Third, such was his executive force 
 and ceaseless effort, he landed his volun- 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 teers ahead of the regulars and headed the 
 column that got the first baptism of blood. 
 
 "Fourth, ^vhen the foe was vanquished 
 on sea and land, the war over, he took the 
 ships that were never before possible, 
 using the telegraph, the steamboat, the rail- 
 road, the cables under the sea, and lifted 
 an army ready to perish from jungles rank 
 with fever, and wafted them to a land of 
 health, saving thousands of lives. The 
 people rejoiced in the man, commended 
 and celebrated the hero, and elected him 
 when there was peace with honor governor 
 of the State of New York." 
 
 It is a matter of political histoiy that 
 Roosevelt objected with all the strenuous- 
 ness of his nature to the proposal to place 
 his name on the national ticket in second 
 place, in 1900. He yielded only when it 
 became apparent to him that his party's 
 wish was practically unanimous. It is an 
 open secret that had ]\IcKinley been at the 
 end of his second term in 1900, instead of 
 his first, that Roosevelt would have been 
 nominated for president, almost by accla- 
 
 84 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 mation. The people were for him. They 
 had not forgotten that heroic dash up the 
 heights of San Juan, led by a man who 
 preferred to fight for his country's honor, 
 rather than to plan in safety for his conn- 
 try's success. 
 
 The party leaders had their way and 
 Roosevelt, with quiet dignity, accepted the 
 second place on the ticket. He went into 
 the campaign with the same vim and dar- 
 ing that carried him through the war in 
 Cuba. His party won and he settled him- 
 self for four years of waiting in the quiet 
 uneventful obscurity of the vice-president 's 
 office. He presided over the deliberative 
 sessions of the senate with a dignity worthy 
 of the traditions of the office. No vice- 
 president could do more. 
 
 The tragedy at Buffalo brought Roose- 
 velt into the white light that beats upon 
 a throne. He was the youngest man who 
 had been called to that exalted office in the 
 history of the republic. Without a mo- 
 ment's warning he was placed face to face 
 with some of the greatest problems in 
 
 35 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 statecraft that had arisen in the century. 
 He was called upon to rule the destinies of 
 nearly 80,000,000 of people— to govern an 
 empire of territory greater, stronger, 
 richer, more powerful than the combined 
 powers of Europe. His became the task 
 of governing the people of the Philippines, 
 of building up in those islands on the edge 
 of the Asiatic continent a free and popular 
 government. His was the duty to grapple 
 with problems of internal administration 
 and foreign relations — to preserve the 
 rights of the people at home and to uphold 
 the honor of the nation abroad. 
 
 President Roosevelt did not long keep 
 the world in doubt as to his views on for- 
 eign and domestic policy. His first mes- 
 sage to Congress was read by the people 
 of the United States on December 2, 1901. 
 It reviewed every problem with which the 
 nation had to do. It left nothing to be 
 guessed at. From that day forward, the 
 powers of Europe, the people at home, the 
 trusts, the labor unions, the financiers and 
 the big taxpayers knew exactly where 
 
 36 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt stood. He left nothing 
 to be inferred. He spoke out. 
 
 It is worth while to compare his admin- 
 istration with that first message. No other 
 president has promised more, no other has 
 done so much to carry out his pledges. 
 
 The young president's first executive 
 declaration upon the question of the trusts 
 and Cuban reciprocity are repeated in sep- 
 arate chapters elsewhere. Let us take up 
 some other features of his message. First, 
 most naturally, he paid tribute to the 
 greatness and personal worth of William 
 McKinley. Passing to a discussion of 
 anarchy and of the danger it threatened to 
 the free institutions of America, he said: 
 
 ''Anarchy is no more an expression of 
 'social discontent' than picking pockets or 
 wife beating. The anarchist, and especially 
 the anarchist in the United States, is mere- 
 ly one type of criminal, more dangerous 
 than any other, because he represents the 
 same depravity in a greater degree. The 
 man who advocates anarchy, directly or 
 indirectly, in any shape or fashion, or the 
 
 37 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 man who apologizes for anarchists and 
 their deeds, makes himself morally acces- 
 sory to murder before the fact. 
 
 ''The anarchist is a criminal whose per- 
 verted instincts lead him to prefer con- 
 fusion and chaos to the most beneficent 
 form of social order. His protest of con- 
 cern for workingmen is outrageous in its 
 impudent falsity ; for if the political insti- 
 tutions of this country do not afford oppor- 
 tunity to every honest and intelligent son 
 of toil, then the door of hope forever is 
 closed against him. The anarchist every- 
 where is not merely the enemy of system 
 and progress, but the deadly foe of liberty. 
 If ever anarchy is triumphant, its triumph 
 will last for but one red moment, to be 
 succeeded for ages by the gloomy night 
 of despotism. 
 
 *'For the anarchist himself, whether he 
 preaches or practices his doctrines, we 
 need not have one particle more concern 
 than for any ordinary murderer. He is 
 not the victim of social or political injus- 
 tice. There are no wrongs to remedy in 
 
 38 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 his case. The cause of his criminality is 
 to be found in his own evil passions, and 
 in the evil conduct of those who urge him 
 on, not in any failure by others, or by the 
 state, to do justice to him or his. He is 
 a malefactor and nothing else. He is in no 
 sense, in no state or way, a 'product of 
 social conditions,' save that a highwayman 
 is 'produced' by the fact that an unarmed 
 man happens to have a purse. It is a 
 travesty upon the great and holy names 
 of liberty and freedom to be invoked in 
 such a cause. No man or body of men 
 preaching anarchist doctrines should be 
 allowed at large, any more than if preach- 
 ing the murder of some specified private 
 individual. Anarchist speeches, writings, 
 and meetings are essentially seditious and 
 treasonable. 
 
 ''I earnestly recommend to Congress 
 that in the exercise of its wise discretion 
 it should take into consideration the com- 
 ing to this country of anarchists or persons 
 professing hostility to all government and 
 justifying the murder of those placed in 
 
 39 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 authority. Such individuals as those who 
 not long ago gathered in open meeting to 
 glorify the murder of King Humbert of 
 Italy perpetrate a crime, and the law 
 should insure their rigorous punishment. 
 They and those like them should be kept 
 out of this country ; and if found here they 
 should be promptly deported to the coun- 
 try whence they came; and far reaching 
 provision should be made for the punish- 
 ment of those who stay. The federal courts 
 should be given jurisdiction over any man 
 who kills or attempts to kill the president 
 or any man who by the constitution or by 
 law is in line of succession for the presi- 
 dency. ' ' 
 
 This w^as the first recommendation made 
 to Congress by Theodore Roosevelt. On 
 March 3, 1903, Congress passed a law em- 
 bodying most of the features recom- 
 mended. The second recommendation, for 
 the department of commerce and labor, 
 was adopted by Congress and a new cabi- 
 net office created. 
 
 40 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION" 
 
 The message next discussed the labor 
 question. President Roosevelt was out- 
 spoken in his friendship for labor. He 
 urged laws prohibiting the competition of 
 convict contract labor in the open market. 
 He declared a provision should be made to 
 enforce the eight-hour law. He opposed 
 excessive tasks for women and children, 
 night work, and work under insanitary 
 conditions. He was not afraid to speak a 
 word in behalf of organized or union labor. 
 He said: 
 
 *'The most vital problem with which this 
 country, and for that matter the whole 
 civilized world, has to deal is the problem 
 which has for one side the betterment of 
 social conditions, moral and physical, in 
 large cities, and for another side the effort 
 to deal with that tangle of far reaching 
 questions which we group together when 
 we speak of 'labor.' The chief factor in 
 the success of each man— wage worker, 
 farmer and capitalist alike— must ever be 
 the sum total of his own individual quali- 
 ties and abilities. 
 
 41 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ' ' Second only to this comes the power of 
 acting in combination or association with 
 others. Very great good has been and 
 will be accomplished by associations or 
 unions of wage vv'orkers, when managed 
 with forethought, and when they combine 
 insistence upon their own rights with law 
 abiding respect for the rights of others. 
 The display of these qualities in such 
 bodies is a duty to the nation no less than 
 to the associations themselves.'' 
 
 Regarding the tariff the president in his 
 first official communication to Congress 
 gave evidence of conservatism and prudent 
 forethought. He wrote: 
 
 ''There is a general acquiescence in our 
 present tariff system as a national policy. 
 The first requisite to our prosperity is the 
 continuity and stability of this economic 
 policy. Nothing could be more unwise 
 than to disturb the business interests of 
 the country by any general tariff change 
 at this time. Doubt, apprehension, uncer- 
 tainty are exactly what we most wish to 
 avoid in the interest of our commercial 
 
 42 
 
JOHN HAY, 
 
 Seci'etarv of State. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 and material well being. Our experience 
 in the past has shown that sweeping re- 
 visions of the tariff are apt to produce 
 conditions closely approaching panic in the 
 business world. 
 
 **Yet it is not only possible, but emi- 
 nontly desirable, to combine with the sta- 
 bility of our economic system a supple- 
 mentary system of reciprocal benefit and 
 obligation with other nations. Such 
 reciprocity is an incident and result of the 
 firm establishment and preservation of our 
 present economic policy. It was specially 
 provided for in the present tariff law.'^ 
 
 Another evidence of the president's con- 
 servatism is found in his reference to the 
 great transportation interests of the coun- 
 try. He had no hesitancy in declaring that 
 the great railway systems of the country 
 should be held to strict accountability in 
 their duties toward the public, but he 
 opposed radical legislation. In urging 
 amendm.ents to the interstate commerce act 
 in order to provide for the better enforce- 
 ment of its provisions, he said: 
 
 43 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 *'The railway is a public servant. Its 
 rates should be just to and open to all 
 shippers alike. The government should 
 see to it that within its jurisdiction this is 
 so and should provide a speedy, inexpen- 
 sive and effective remedy to that end. ' At 
 the same time it must not be forgotten that 
 our railways are the arteries through which 
 the commercial life blood of this nation 
 flows. Nothing could be more foolish than 
 the enactment of legislation which would 
 unnecessarily interfere with the develop- 
 ment and operation of these commercial 
 agencies. ' * 
 
 44 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SETTLEMENT OF THE COAL 
 STRIKE. 
 
 THE settlement of the anthracite coal 
 strike in 1902 was the first notable 
 achievement in President Roosevelt *s 
 administration. It was the most serious 
 labor disturbance that had menaced the 
 prosperity of the country for a quarter of 
 a century. It cost mine owners, miners, 
 railroads, manufacturers and merchants 
 $197,390,000. It continued for 154 days 
 and was settled by President Roosevelt on 
 a basis which compelled the mine owners 
 to give full recognition to the rights and 
 dignity of organized union labor, while at 
 the same time the rights of capital were 
 not impaired. 
 
 The greatness of the victory for union 
 labor, the cost and seriousness of the strug- 
 gle, the danger to business interests in- 
 volved, and the tremendous value of the 
 
 45 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 President's successful efforts to restore 
 peace in the labor world, and at the same 
 time to guard the prosperity of the coun- 
 try, make it worth while to give a brief 
 review of the history of the strike. 
 
 The situation in the Pennsylvania 
 anthracite field is paralleled in no other 
 laboring community in the world. Prac- 
 tically the entire output of the hard coal 
 of the United States is controlled by half 
 a dozen men. They are: 
 
 GEORGE F BAER, President Philadelphia and 
 Reading Coal and Iron Company; Lehigh and 
 Wilkesbarre Coal Company; Temple Iron 
 Company. 
 
 E. B. THOMAS, Chairman Pennsylvania Coal 
 Company; Hillsdale Coal and Iron Company. 
 
 W. H. TRUESDALE, President Delaware, Lack- 
 awanna and Western Railroad Company. 
 
 J, B. FOWLER, President Scranton Coal Com- 
 pany; Elk Hill Coal and Iron Company. 
 
 R. N. OLIPHANT, President Delaware and Hud- 
 son Company. 
 
 ALFRED WATERS, President Lehigh Valley 
 Coal Company. 
 
 JOHN MARKLE, an independent operator. 
 
 These men are *' trustees for the own- 
 ers." The real owners of the anthracite 
 
 46 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 coal fields are the coal carrying railroads, 
 the Reading, the Delaware and Lacka- 
 wanna, the Ontario and Western, the Erie, 
 and the Pennsylvania. 
 
 These companies have a monopoly in the 
 anthracite field. They control 150,000 
 workingmen. They own the houses in 
 which their miners live. They own the 
 stores from which their miners are com- 
 pelled to buy. They own the mines, they 
 own the railroads that haul the coal to 
 market, and by these facts are able to con- 
 trol the dealers, wholesale and retail, and 
 to fix the price of anthracite coal in every 
 city in the United States. 
 
 In 1901 the anthracite coal operators, at 
 the urgent request of the late United States 
 Senator M. A. Hanna, agreed to arbitrate 
 with the miners, who were then striking 
 for shorter hours and higher pay. As a 
 result of that arbitration the operators 
 agreed to pay a 10 per cent advance in 
 wages. The men returned to work satis- 
 fied. In a few months, however, they com- 
 plained that the operators, to make up for 
 
 47 I 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 the advance in wages, were charging more 
 for provisions at country stores and dock- 
 ing the miners heavily in weighing coal. 
 
 A strike resulted. It began on May 12, 
 1902, and involved 183,500 men. 
 
 At first, the public took but little interest 
 in the strike. Then the newspapers began 
 printing a few startling facts. The public 
 discovered first that the average miner in 
 the employ of the hard coal railroads, was 
 earning less than $400 a year. On Presi- 
 dent Baer's own estimate his employes 
 received $368 a year. President Mitchell, 
 of the United Mine Workers, declared the 
 average pay was even less than that. He 
 declared there were thousands of men 
 working for 68 cents a day, and that 
 breaker and washery boys received from 
 3 to 8 cents a day. 
 
 During May and June the miners con- 
 tented themselves with marching in bodies 
 through the coal region, overawing non- 
 union men and driving them from work by 
 hooting and jeering. There were many 
 cases of individual assault, but as a rule 
 
 48 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 the great army of strikers kept the peace. 
 
 The operators daily assured the public 
 that the strikers were returning to work 
 in large numbers and that the mines would 
 be running with full force inside of a 
 month. They took such a rosy view of the 
 situation that J. Pierpont Morgan de- 
 parted for Europe with the information 
 from his lieutenants that the strike was 
 on the verge of breaking up. 
 
 July came and the miners, although 
 fighting what seemed to be a losing battle, 
 remained firm. The companies, despite 
 their boasts, were unable to operate their 
 mines. 
 
 Then the anthracite mine owners began 
 systematic efforts to get out the troops, 
 but the miners, well disciplined by Presi- 
 dent John Mitchell, kept the peace and the 
 troops were not called out. 
 
 In July Senator Hanna, Bishop Potter, 
 Archbishop Ryan and a score of men 
 equally prominent, attempted to bring 
 about arbitration. They failed, the oper- 
 ators demanding the unconditional sur- 
 
 49 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 render of their employes. The operators 
 declared they would never arbitrate with 
 John ]\Iitchell or the United ]Mine Work- 
 ers and that their employes must first 
 return to work as individuals. Then and 
 not until then would the anthracite oper- 
 ators consider the demands of the miners. 
 
 A crisis in the industrial world was at 
 hand. The country at last realized that it 
 was face to face with a coal famine that 
 threatened to paralyze every industry east 
 of the Mississippi river. The soft coal 
 miners, all compactly organized, only 
 waited the signal from John ]\Iitcliell to 
 drop pick and shovel. Prices of coal went 
 higher and higher and mills and factories 
 all over the country began to feel the blight 
 of the strike. 
 
 In the latter part of July and in August 
 rioting began. Troops were sent into the 
 disturbed district and the strike dragged 
 along. 
 
 The situation was becoming alarming. 
 The coal supply was running low. The 
 people of the United States began to rise 
 
 50 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 in indignation. Hundreds of organiza- 
 tions petitioned the president and Con- 
 gress, and governors of states, to force the 
 operators to agree to arbitration. 
 
 By September 20 the anthracite coal 
 supply of the United States practically 
 was exhausted. Various expedients were 
 adopted to force the operators to come to 
 terms. They all failed. Five Boston men 
 of wealth and influence brought suit to 
 have receivers appointed for the anthra- 
 cite coal companies. Their effort was abor- 
 tive. The mayor of Detroit called upon the 
 governors of states and the mayors of cities 
 to meet in national conference at Detroit 
 on October 9 to devise means to grapple 
 with a situation which threatened indus- 
 trial and commercial paralysis to the entire 
 country. 
 
 At this crisis President Roosevelt 
 asserted himself. With characteristic di- 
 rectness he went to the root of the trouble. 
 He wrote a personal note to the six men 
 who control the anthracite coal supply of 
 the United States and requested them to 
 
 51 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 meet him at the White House on October 3. 
 He sent a similar request to John Mitchell, 
 president of the United Mine ^Yorkers. 
 
 It is significant of the confidence which 
 the people of the United States have in 
 Theodore Roosevelt that all other efforts 
 to end the strike ended the moment it 
 became known that he had called the coal 
 operators to the White House. Business 
 men and laboring men felt that he was the 
 one man who could and who would settle 
 the strike. 
 
 The conference was held at the White 
 House on October 3. Those present were : 
 
 President Roosevelt. 
 
 The attorney general. 
 
 Carroll D. Wright, commissioner of 
 labor. 
 
 President Baer of the Reading. 
 
 President Thomas of the Erie. 
 
 President Truesdale of the Lackawanna 
 and Western. 
 
 President Fowler of the Ontario and 
 Western. 
 
 53 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 . Daniel Wilcox, vice-president of the 
 Delaware and Hudson, representing Presi- 
 dent Oliphant. 
 
 John Markle, representing the inde- 
 pendent coal operators. 
 
 President John IMitchell of the United 
 ]\Iine Workers of America. 
 
 Thomas Duffy, T. D. Nichols and John 
 Fahy, presidents of Districts Numbers 7, 1 
 and 9 of the miners' union, being the dis- 
 tricts where anthracite coal is mined. 
 
 At this first conference the operators 
 were respectful, but no more. They main- 
 tained the same defiant, unyielding atti- 
 tude they had shown to Senator Hanna, 
 Bishop Potter, Archbishop Ryan, Gov. 
 Odell and others who had endeavored to 
 induce them to consent to submit their 
 differences with the miners to arbitration. 
 
 When the conference opened President 
 Roosevelt made the following statement : 
 
 * ' I wish to call your attention to the fact 
 that there are three parties affected by the 
 situation in the anthracite trade— the oper- 
 ators, the miners, and the general public. 
 
 53 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 I speak for neither the operators nor the 
 miners, but for the general public. The 
 questions at issue which led to the situation 
 affect immediately the parties concerned — 
 the operators and the miners. But the 
 situation itself vitally affects the public. 
 
 **As long as there seemed to be reason- 
 able hope that these matters could be ad- 
 justed between the parties it did not seem 
 proper for me to intervene in any way. I 
 disclaim any right or duty to intervene in 
 this way upon legal grounds or upon any 
 official relation that I bear to the situation ; 
 but the urgency and the terrible nature of 
 the catastrophe impending over a large 
 portion of our people in the shape of a 
 winter fuel famine, impel me, after much 
 anxious thought, to believe that my duty 
 requires me to use whatever influence I 
 personally can to bring to an end a situa- 
 tion which has become literally intolerable. 
 
 *'The evil possibilities are so far reach- 
 ing that it seems to me that you are not 
 only justified in sinking, but required to 
 sink, for the time being any tenacity to 
 
 51 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 your respective claims in the matter at 
 issue between you. 
 
 **In my judgment the situation impera- 
 tively requires that you meet upon the 
 common plane of the necessities of the 
 public. With all the earnestness there is 
 in me I ask that there be an immediate 
 resumption of operation in the coal mines, 
 in some such way as will without a day's 
 unnecessary delay meet the crying needs 
 of the people. 
 
 *'I do not invite a discussion of your 
 respective claims and positions. I appeal 
 to your patriotism, to the spirit that sinks 
 personal considerations and makes indi- 
 vidual sacrifices to the general good." 
 
 The anthracite operators almost arro- 
 gantly refused to meet President Roose- 
 velt's appeal. They refused to arbitrate. 
 They practically demanded federal troops 
 to overawe the strikers in order that they 
 might work their mines as they pleased, 
 pay what wages they pleased and charge 
 what price they pleased. 
 
 55 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 President Baer told President Roosevelt 
 that he should not *' waste time negotiating 
 with the fomenters of this anarchy and 
 insolent defiance of law," but that he 
 should "do as was done in the war of the 
 rebellion, restore the majesty of the law 
 and re-establish peace at any price." 
 
 E. B. Thomas, president of the Erie, 
 told President Roosevelt that mob \aolence 
 alone prevented resumption of work in the 
 mines. 
 
 John Markle declared it was President 
 Roosevelt's first duty to send federal troops 
 into the coal fields. He said : 
 
 *'I now ask you to perform the duties 
 vested in you as president of the United 
 States to at once squelch the anarchistic 
 condition of affairs existing in the anthra- 
 cite coal regions by the strong arm of the 
 military at your command. If you desire 
 anthracite coal to be placed in the market 
 quickly, take the necessary steps at once 
 and put federal troops in the field." 
 
 W. H. Truesdale, president of the Lack- 
 awanna, declared that the "suppression of 
 
 56 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 anarchy" must be the first step toward 
 peace. 
 
 David Wilcox, president of the Delaware 
 and Hudson, called the miners' union a 
 monopoly and declared they were plotting 
 to gain control of the entire coal supply 
 of the country. 
 
 In strong contrast to these demands was 
 the simple proposal of John Mitchell, pres- 
 ident of the United Mine Workers. He 
 said: 
 
 *' We propose that the issues in this strike 
 be referred to you and a tribunal of your 
 own selection, and agree to accept your 
 award upon all or any of the questions 
 involved. ' ' 
 
 No greater tribute to the personal worth 
 of Theodore Roosevelt was ever paid by 
 any man. Here was the representative of 
 nearly half a million laboring men, who 
 had suffered and whose families had suf- 
 fered for months, who were engaged in 
 a life and death struggle with a combina- 
 tion of corporate interests, capitalized at 
 $500,000,000, willing to rest their whole 
 
 57 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 case upon the decision of the man who sat 
 in the White House and to abide by that 
 decision for any term of years the coal 
 operators might demand. 
 
 There were no reservations, no condi- 
 tions. The miners in effect said to Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt: 
 
 ''You decide our case. We will accept 
 your decision in advance.'^ 
 
 The operators refused to accept the arbi- 
 tration of the President and exposed the 
 w^eakness of their whole case. 
 
 The anthracite o^^Tiers tried to face pub- 
 lic opinion and failed. Every way they 
 turned they found sentiment against them. 
 They had left the White House on October 
 3, satisfied that they had taught Theodore 
 Roosevelt a lesson in government. They 
 returned to the "Wliite House on October 
 13 in a different spirit. They had stood 
 for ten days in the fierce light that beat 
 down upon them from an aroused and 
 indignant public and they could not hold 
 out against it. 
 
 58 
 
W. H. MOODY. 
 Secret ai'y of the Navy, 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 On the night of October 13 J. Pierpont 
 Morgan appeared at the White House at 
 the request of the anthracite operators. In 
 their behalf and at their request the New 
 York financier asked President Roosevelt 
 to name an arbitration commission. The 
 request was in writing and was signed by 
 the anthracite operators. 
 
 President Roosevelt named the arbitra- 
 tion commission on October 15. It was 
 made up as follows: 
 BRIG. GEN. JOHN M. NELSON, U. S. A., an 
 
 officer of the engineer corps. 
 E. W. PARKEE, an expert mining engineer, and 
 chief statistician of the coal division of the 
 United States geological survey. 
 GEORGE GRAY, judge of the United States 
 court, former senator from Delaware; mem- 
 ber of the Spanish peace commission; mem- 
 ber of international committee of arbitra- 
 tion under The Hague convention. 
 JOHN LANCASTER SPAULDING, Catholic 
 
 Bishop of Peoria. 
 EDGAR E. CLARK, grand chief of the Order of 
 
 Railway Conductors. 
 THOMAS H. WATKINS, of Scranton, Pa., 
 acquainted with mining and selling of coal. 
 CARROL D. WRIGHT, United States commis- 
 sioner of labor. 
 
 5D 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 The appointment of the commission 
 ended the strike. The miners returned to 
 work, just as John Mitchell said they 
 would. The idle mines were again in full 
 operation. All fear of a coal famine van- 
 ished. Manufacturing industry revived at 
 once, and prosperity, threatened for 
 months, continued. The courage of Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt and the implicit confidence 
 placed in him by the laboring men of the 
 country averted a great industrial crisis. 
 
 The press of the United States did not 
 hesitate to give President Roosevelt the 
 credit. Labor leaders were equally prompt 
 in declaring that the president had sho\vn 
 himself, not only the friend of the work- 
 ingman, but of the union workingman. 
 
 Ultimately the arbitration commission 
 gave its decision. It sustained most of the 
 demands of the miners' union. It gave 
 them increased wages. It justified the con- 
 fidence placed in President Roosevelt by 
 the miners themselves. No greater tribute 
 could be paid to him as a President and as 
 a man. 
 
 60 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 THE VENEZUELAN AFFAIR. 
 
 THE delicate diplomatic negotiations 
 over the Venezuelan affair, in 1892- 
 1893, began even while President 
 Roosevelt was engrossed in the settlement 
 of the anthracite coal strike. Thus it hap- 
 pened that while he was protecting the 
 rights and interests of the humblest labor- 
 ers at home he was securing from the great 
 powers of Europe a broader and more cor- 
 dial recognition of the rights and interests 
 of the nation. 
 
 The issues involved in the quarrel be- 
 tween Great Britain, Germany and Italy 
 on the one hand and the turbulent little 
 South American republic on the other 
 trenched dangerously close to an attack 
 upon the Monroe doctrine and a dispute 
 with the United States. A diplomatic sit- 
 uation was created which required delicate 
 handling and at the same time an unf alter- 
 
 61 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ing courage. President Roosevelt proved 
 himself equal to the occasion. 
 
 It is fair to state that when Great Brit- 
 ain, and Germany, in their efforts to collect 
 debts due their citizens from Venezuela, 
 were forced to make actual war upon that 
 republic, they had no purpose in attacking 
 or undermining the ]!\Ionroe doctrine. The 
 record on this point is clear, and, had not 
 the unexpected attitude of Venezuela pre- 
 cipitated a crisis it is likely that the United 
 States would not have been involved in the 
 controversy. 
 
 Yet, as events turned out, a real and se- 
 rious menace to the Monroe doctrine devel- 
 oped. Great Britain and Germany expect- 
 ed to be compelled to undertake nothing 
 more than the seizure of one or two custom 
 houses, to be held only until the duties col- 
 lected on imports would equal the amount 
 of their claims against Venezuela. To this 
 procedure President Roosevelt would have 
 offered no objection. He had secured 
 pledges, oral and written, from both pow- 
 ers, that the occupation of the Venezuelan 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 customs houses would be only temporary. 
 
 The situation, however, developed along 
 different and unexpected lines. Great Brit- 
 ain and Germany found themselves face 
 to face with the necessity of sending armies 
 to Venezuela— armies of sufficient strength 
 to march across rugged mountains and to 
 capture an inland capital guarded by 200,- 
 000 men. 
 
 President Roosevelt refused to permit so 
 serious a campaign by the armies of for- 
 eign powers on the soil of an American re- 
 public. He took the position that a war of 
 such magnitude would have proved so cost- 
 ly an enterprise that the nations involved 
 in it might be compelled in sheer self- 
 protection to occupy the territory of Vene- 
 zuela for an indefinite period. The Pres- 
 ident declined to permit the history of 
 Egypt to be repeated on American soil. 
 The inner history of the diplomatic ex- 
 changes which compelled the powers to 
 give up the campaign is yet to be written. 
 Diplomacy does not work on the street cor- 
 ners or on the housetops. It is only known 
 
 63 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 that Great Britain and Germany began 
 war on Venezuela unexpectedly and 
 stopped it as suddenly as it began. It is 
 known that Admiral Dewey, with the most 
 powerful squadron of battleships and cruis- 
 ers that ever assembled in the Caribbean 
 sea left the winter rendezvous off Culebra 
 island, east of Porto Rico, and proceeded to 
 the Island of Trinidad, within a few hours' 
 steaming distance of the Venezuelan ports 
 held under the menace of British and Ger- 
 man guns. It is known that the allied 
 fleets proclaimed a blockade and bombard- 
 ed a few Venezuelan ports and then set- 
 tled the main points of the controversy by 
 agreement at Washington and submitted 
 other points to the international tribunal 
 at The Hague. 
 
 It is not to be denied that no little un- 
 easiness was manifested in the United States 
 over the Venezuelan affairs. Newspapers 
 and public speakers who took a superficial 
 view of the incident asserted that the Eu- 
 ropean powers had deliberately planned an 
 attack upon the Monroe doctrine. The 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 facts do not justify this view. Great Brit- 
 ian has never been seriously disposed to 
 challenge the Monroe doctrine, and its gov- 
 ernment in recent years has repeatedly an- 
 nounced in state papers and in formal dec- 
 laration in Parliament that it recognizes 
 the full force of the principle. The atti- 
 tude of the German government always has 
 been strictly correct. 
 
 And yet the situation undeniably lent 
 itself to an attack upon the Monroe doc- 
 trine. Venezuela owed large sums of money, 
 not only to Germany, Italy and Great Brit- 
 ain, but to France, Belgium, Spain, Nor- 
 way, Sweden and The Netherlands. Never 
 had so great an opportunity presented itself 
 for the nations of Europe to make just and 
 common cause against an American repub- 
 lic, despite the restraints of the Monroe 
 doctrine, and to unite in seizing and hold- 
 ing American soil. 
 
 Fortunately President Roosevelt was a 
 man quick to realize the opportunity that 
 had presented itself to Europe. He was 
 equally quick to see the menace to the Mon- 
 
 65 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 roe doctrine implied. He was equally 
 prompt to take energetic measures to up- 
 hold the American principle. 
 
 A careful examination of the facts leads 
 to the suspicion that Germany deliberately 
 forced a quarrel upon Venezuela. For 
 years that South American republic had 
 been rent by revolution and civil war. It 
 had defaulted in its interest due on the 
 foreign loan, and it confronted an enormous 
 aggregate of claims from German, English, 
 French and other foreign citizens for prop- 
 erty lost during the civil wars. When Pres- 
 ident Castro restored peace in 1895 he took 
 up the settlement of these foreign claims. 
 France presented claims for $10,800,000, 
 Germany for $2,140,000, and Italy for $67,- 
 000. The claims made by citizens of other 
 nationalities were indefinite. 
 
 Venezuela had no difficulty in reaching 
 a settlement with her largest creditor, 
 France. A treaty of commerce and navi- 
 gation was signed and all the French claims 
 referred to the arbitration of Senor Leon y 
 Castillo, the Spanish ambassador at Paris, 
 
 66 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 who was to act with one representative of 
 France and one of Venezuela. On April 
 18, 1902, France and Venezuela signed a 
 protocol accepting the decision of the arbi- 
 trator, and the payment of a debt of $10,- 
 800,000 arranged for without friction, with- 
 out threats and without a display of naval 
 force, the bombardment of seaports and 
 the killing of innocent men and women. 
 
 German claims amounted to only $2,- 
 140,000. President Castro ordered the sub- 
 mission of these claims to a Venezuelan 
 commission for examination. The claims 
 were for alleged damage to the property of 
 German citizens by the armies of the va- 
 rious revolutionary outbreaks, for goods 
 supplied to the troops, from requisitions 
 made in war time, looting and forced loans. 
 Many of them were extravagantly exor- 
 bitant. Many of them were based on mere 
 assertions. 
 
 On January 24, 1901, the Venezuelan 
 government ordered the claims referred to 
 a commission, with right of appeal to the 
 Venezuelan supreme court. Germany re- 
 
 67 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 fused to abide by this arrangement, ex- 
 amined the claims herself, and peremptor- 
 ily demanded payment. 
 
 The English claims were of a different 
 character and involved, in addition to 
 money claims, a dispute over the posses- 
 sion of the Island of Patos, off the Vene- 
 zuelan coast. 
 
 On July 23, 1902, England suggested to 
 Germany joint action to obtain satisfac- 
 tion from Venezuela. Germany proposed 
 a naval demonstration. But Germany in- 
 sisted further that British and German 
 claims should stand or fall together, that 
 neither claim could be settled without a 
 satisfactory settlement of the other, and 
 that neither government should be at liber- 
 ty to recede except by mutual agreement. 
 Great Britain agreed. 
 
 No English statesman in modern times 
 has been more severely criticised by his own 
 people than was Lord Lansdowne, the Brit- 
 ish minister of foreign affairs, for signing 
 such an agreement with Germany. Eng- 
 lish newspapers, when the real significance 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 became known, declared in so many words 
 that Great Britain had been trapped bjr 
 Germany, and that in consequence Great 
 Britain had been compelled to assume an 
 attitude distasteful to the people of the 
 United States. But the agreement had 
 been signed and England stood by her 
 word to Germany and the preparations for 
 a naval demonstration began. 
 
 Germany consulted the United States be- 
 fore acting. Ambassador Von Holleben 
 called at the state department and assured 
 Secretary Hay that Germany and England 
 contemplated nothing more than the usual 
 course of procedure. The assurances of 
 the German ambassador were accepted as 
 coming from a friendly power. The sit- 
 uation was not a new one in the history of 
 the relations between foreign governments 
 and the little fire-eating, debt-evading re- 
 publics of South and Central America. 
 President Cleveland had permitted the 
 English to seize the port of Corinto, on the 
 west coast of Nicaragua, and hold it until 
 claims against that government had been 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 adjusted. lu so doing President Cleveland 
 in no way endangered the Monroe doctrine, 
 for he had been assured that British occu- 
 pation of Corinto would cease the instant 
 British claims had been adjusted. 
 
 In the Venezuelan affair Secretary Hay 
 only followed the usual rule. He made it 
 clear to the German ambassador that for- 
 eign occupation of a Venezuelan port, if 
 made necessaiy by the exigencies of the af- 
 fair, could at most be only temporary and 
 that the United States would assume the 
 right to judge circumstances as they devel- 
 oped and to interfere whenever the ^lonroe 
 doctrine was in apparent danger of in- 
 fringement. 
 
 Events proved that Germany and Great 
 Britain were compelled to go beyond the 
 assurances given to the United States. In 
 a written memorandum left with Secretary 
 Hay, the German ambassador. Dr. Von Hol- 
 leben said : 
 
 **We declare especially that under no 
 circumstances do we consider in our pro- 
 ceedings the acquisition or the permanent 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION" 
 
 occupation of Venezuelan territory. If the 
 Venezuelan government should force us to 
 the application of measures of coercion, we 
 should have to consider if at this occasion 
 we should ask likewise for a greater secur- 
 ity for the fulfillment of the claims. After 
 the posting of an ultimatum, first of all the 
 blockade of the more important Venezuelan 
 harbors would have to be considered as an 
 appropriate measure of coercion. * * * 
 If this measure does not seem efficient we 
 should have to consider the temporary oc- 
 cupation on our part of different Venezue- 
 lan harbor places and the levying of duty 
 in those places. '^ 
 
 So far, so good. Germany had assured 
 the .United States of a purpose to enforce 
 only a peaceful blockade, and in the event 
 of that measure failing to secure a settle- 
 ment, the collection of duties on goods im- 
 ported into Venezuela. President Roose- 
 velt accepted these assurances of the Ger- 
 man government. In a memorandum 
 handed to Ambassador Von Holleben, he 
 wrote : 
 
 71 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ' ' The President of the United States, ap- 
 preciating the courtesy of the German gov- 
 ernment in making him acquainted with 
 the state of affairs referred to, and not re- 
 garding himself as called upon to enter 
 into the consideration of the claims in ques- 
 tion, believes that no measures will be taken 
 in this matter by the agents of the German 
 government which are not in accordance 
 with the well known purpose, above set 
 forth, of his majesty, the German Emper- 
 or.'' 
 
 President Roosevelt's attitude toward the 
 foreign governments involved in the con- 
 troversy with Venezuela was strictly cor- 
 rect. It was endorsed by such able Sena- 
 tors as Cullom of Illinois, and Lodge of 
 Massachusetts. It was upheld by the press 
 of the United States. The consensus of 
 opinion in the United States was correctly 
 voiced by Senator Lodge when he said : 
 
 ''The attitude of the United States in 
 reference to the question is made perfectly 
 plain by President Roosevelt in his mes- 
 sage. Under the Monroe doctrine this gov- 
 
 72 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 eminent is permitted to intervene only to 
 the extent of preventing acquisition of ter- 
 ritory. The United States may keep a 
 watchful eye on the course pursued by 
 these foreign powers and see that there is 
 no overstepping of the provisions named. 
 Beyond that, the United States has no in- 
 terest in the forcible collection of the Ven- 
 ezuelan debt." 
 
 But in spite of England and Germany's 
 assurances of a pacific blockade and peace- 
 ful coercion, events moved so rapidly on 
 the Venezuelan coast that within a week 
 after the policy of *' peaceful coercion" 
 was put in force by the allied fleets, both 
 Germany and Great Britain were engaged 
 in actual war with Venezuela and the whole 
 face of the controversy was altered. 
 
 Germany and England miscalculated the 
 strength of Venezuelan patriotism and the 
 extent of Venezuelan courage. They had 
 taken it for granted that Venezuela would 
 tamely submit to the inevitable settlement 
 under the frowning menace of the shotted 
 guns of a formidable fleet. 
 
 73 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 But Venezuela did not submit tamely. 
 Germany and England presented ultima- 
 tums at Caracas on December 7, and with- 
 drew their envoys. The effect was unex- 
 pected and startling. President Castro de- 
 fied the powers and the people of Venezue- 
 la, regardless of revolutionary plots and 
 party quarrels, rallied to his support. 
 
 Events moved with startling rapidity, 
 and in three days Germany and England, 
 instead of conducting a peaceful blockade 
 of the Venezuelan coast, were making 
 actual war on an American republic. 
 
 Venezuelan warships were seized and 
 scuttled. Venezuelan ports were bombard- 
 ed and non-combatants killed. President 
 Castro called 250,000 men to arms and be- 
 gan to fortify his seaports. He seized the 
 German railroad from La Guayra to Cara- 
 cas and made preparations to defend his 
 capital. 
 
 President Roosevelt instantly recognized 
 the seriousness of the danger involved in 
 the startling change in the situation. He 
 saw, more quickly than any other states- 
 
 71 
 
LESLIE M. SHAW, 
 Secretary of the Treasury. 
 
EOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 man in America or Europe, that unless 
 Germany and England were restrained 
 they would be compelled to land an army 
 in Venezuela, to seize the capital and to 
 hold it until Venezuela made a satisfactory 
 settlement. Such a course involved indefi- 
 nite occupation of the territory of an Amer- 
 ican republic by a foreign power, and as 
 such was a direct and flagrant violation of 
 the letter and spirit of the Monroe doc- 
 trine. 
 
 With President Roosevelt, to realize 
 quickly was to act quickly. On the night of 
 December 14, the ambassadors of Germany 
 and Great Britain were handed memoran- 
 dums to the effect: 
 
 **It must be understood that the United 
 States could not give its consent to any ex- 
 tension of the international right of peace- 
 ful blockade. ' ' 
 
 In other words, Germany and Great 
 Britain were informed that the United 
 States would not permit them to punisH 
 Venezuela, nor would they be permitted to 
 
 75 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 go beyond the limits of a peaceful block- 
 ade. 
 
 President Roosevelt had given the Mon- 
 roe doctrine a new and broader interpreta- 
 tion. He recognized the right of all nations 
 to collect debts justly due from American 
 republics, but he declared plainly that Eu- 
 ropean powers could not make war upon 
 an American republic without the consent 
 of the United States. 
 
 The President 's plain warning compelled 
 the allies to abandon their campaign 
 against Venezuela. There was no more 
 talk of seizing ports and customs houses. 
 All ideas of sending German and English 
 soldiers to occupy the territory of the Southi 
 American republic were given up. 
 
 More than that, the President's prompt 
 decision nearly caused a rupture of friend- 
 ly relations between England and Ger- 
 many. English press and public declared 
 that England had been led blindly by Ger- 
 many. The debates in the British House of 
 Commons and the merciless criticism of the 
 London press proved that Premier Bal- 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 four and Lord Lansdowne had been made 
 the unwitting victims of Germany's supe- 
 rior diplomacy. President Roosevelt's 
 startling warning showed British states- 
 men where their government stood. 
 
 England's reply came without an in- 
 stant's hesitation. On December 16, two 
 days after the British ambassador in Lon- 
 don had been informed that the United 
 States could not permit the powers to go 
 beyond the limits of a peaceful blockade 
 of the Venezuelan coast, the British house 
 rang with cheers when Lord Cranborne 
 under secretary of state for foreign af- 
 fairs, declared that Great Britain would as- 
 sist in upholding and maintaining the Mon- 
 roe doctrine. 
 
 From that day forward the Venezuelan 
 adventure was doomed to failure. England 
 would have no more of it. True, England 
 held to her agreement with Germany to 
 the extent of keeping her fleet in Venezue- 
 lan waters, but the British ships contented 
 themselves with maintaining a strictly 
 peaceful blockade, waiting for Germany 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 and Italy to agree to proposals to submit 
 the entire dispute to arbitration. 
 
 At Rome no secret was made of the be- 
 lief that Italy was participating in the 
 first European attack upon the Monroe 
 doctrine. Press comment and parliament- 
 ary debate proved the satisfaction and 
 pride of the Italian people in the part their 
 government was taking in the first organ- 
 ized effort by the powers in breaking down 
 the barrier to European acquisition of ter- 
 ritory on the American continent. 
 
 Germany did not realize that the game 
 was lost until four days had followed Pres- 
 ident Roosevelt's warning. In those four 
 days Germany awakened to public senti- 
 ment in the United States. American cor- 
 respondents of leading German newspa- 
 pers cabled circumstantial reports of anti- 
 German feeling in the big republic. One 
 New York correspondent declared that 
 German}^ seemingly was without a friend 
 in the United States. Others declared that 
 Germany was accused of designs to secure 
 
 78 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 territory in Venezuela in defiance of the 
 Monroe doctrine. 
 
 These statements produced a feeling of 
 profound astonishment in German official 
 and business circles. This feeling resulted 
 in a general protest that Germany cared 
 more for friendly relations with the United 
 States than it did for the satisfaction of 
 humiliating even so insolent a state as Ven- 
 ezuela. The revulsion of sentiment was 
 quickly felt at the foreign office and Ger- 
 many reluctantly agreed to submit the 
 Venezuelan affair to arbitration. 
 
 President Roosevelt had saved the sit- 
 uation. He had protected the Monroe doc- 
 trine, even to the extent of sending Ad- 
 miral Dewey with practically the entire ef- 
 fective naval strength of the United States 
 to Trinidad within a few hours' steaming 
 of the blockaded Venezuelan coast. 
 
 Diplomatically, Germany's assurances 
 of respect for the IMonroe doctrine were 
 strictly correct. The United States was 
 assured all along that Germany had no de- 
 signs upon Venezuelan territory. Presi- 
 
 79 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 dent Roosevelt had accepted these assur- 
 ances as having been made in perfect good 
 faith. 
 
 But there was a grave danger to the 
 Monroe doctrine that even the diplomatic 
 assurances of Germany could not avert. 
 Venezuela's temper had been aroused to 
 the fighting point. Once embarked in a 
 land campaign, Germany and England 
 could have conquered Venezuela only by 
 landing from 50,000 to 150,000 men- 
 Venezuela had called 250,000 men to arms. 
 The campaign in the mountains of Vene- 
 zuela would have consumed months and 
 have cost several hundred millions of dol- 
 lars. 
 
 How were Germany and England to be 
 indemnified for so tremendous an expendi- 
 ture ? Under the terms of their assurances 
 to the United States they could recoup 
 themselves only by the indefinite occupa- 
 tion of Venezuelan soil and the indefinite 
 collection of duties on imports at Ven- 
 ezuelan harbors. 
 
 80 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 England's occupation of Egypt atfords 
 too striking an object lesson to be over- 
 looked even by a man less skilled in states- 
 manship than Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 The story of the final settlement of the 
 Venezuelan controversy need not be told 
 here. Suffice it to say that it was settled 
 by negotiation at V^ashington and by ref- 
 erence to The Hague. 
 
 President Roosevelt's conduct of the af- 
 fair enabled the United States as well as 
 Europe to take their first measure of his 
 genius as a statesman. It was the first 
 great international crisis with which he 
 had to deal. He met it with a clearness 
 of vision, a wisdom that would have been 
 creditable to a chancellor skilled in years 
 of diplomacy, and with a courage that did 
 not shrink even in the presence of the 
 knowledge that one mistake, one deviation 
 from the dictates of good judgment and 
 sound policy would have involved the 
 United States in complications that might 
 have led to war with United Europe. 
 
 81 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 Theodore Roosevelt thus proved his 
 statesmanship ahnost at the outset of his 
 administration. The Venezuelan affair 
 was, as events finally proved, insignificant ; 
 but for the time being it was fraught with 
 the danger that sometimes decides the fate 
 of empires. And when the Venezuelan in- 
 cident was closed Germany and England 
 and with them the other powers of Europe 
 had accorded an official recognition of the 
 Monroe doctrine they had never given be- 
 fore and had given it without rancor, and 
 with the full understanding that for all 
 time the United States was the dominant 
 power on the new hemisphere. 
 
 82 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATIOIS' 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 ALASKAN BOUNDARY SETTLE- 
 MENT. 
 
 PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT proved 
 the high qualities of his statesman- 
 ship by the wisdom and courage 
 with which he settled the Venezuelan af- 
 fair. His success in ending the Alaskan 
 boundary dispute was even a greater dip- 
 lomatic trimnph. 
 
 Prior to 1897 the Alaskan boundary 
 question was regarded by Canada with only 
 a languid interest. To the statesmen at 
 Ottawa the settlement of the controversy 
 was only a matter of a surveying party 
 with a chain and a few stakes. But in 1897 
 gold was found along the banks of Klon- 
 dike creek in the British Northwest Terri- 
 tory, and in three months 50,000 excited 
 prospectors rushed into the region. The 
 Klondike gold fields promised to equal the 
 mines of the Rand in the Transvaal. 
 The gold was there, in immense quantities.. 
 
 83 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 The United States controlled the only 
 sea gates to the Klondike gold fields. The 
 rush of prospectors passed through the 
 American ports of Dyea and Skaguay at 
 the head of Lynn canal. Those ports were 
 in the narrow strip of territory long but in- 
 differently claimed by Canada. 
 
 Canada's interest in the Alaskan bound- 
 ary question suddenly warmed, and in 
 less than a year after the discovery of gold 
 in the Klondike fields the Canadian press, 
 backed by the Canadian government, was 
 declaring, vehemently and persistently, 
 that the ports of Dyea and Skaguay be- 
 longed to Canada. 
 
 Canada's claims were received in the 
 United States with smiles of incredulity 
 and were promptly characterized as ab- 
 surd. But the Canadians were frantically 
 in earnest. They threatened embargoes on 
 American goods and retaliation on Ameri- 
 can tariffs. They ordered a hea\y tax on 
 all gold taken from Klondike claims by 
 American miners. Some of the more excit- 
 able even indulged in noisy talk of war. 
 
 8i 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 More than once in the history of the last 
 100 years have the United States and Great 
 Britain been brought to the verge of war 
 by disputes over the boundary line between 
 British and American possessions in the 
 North American continent. One of the 
 most tedious and interesting disputes be- 
 tween the United States and Great Britain 
 came over the boundary from the St. Croix 
 river along the ]\Iaine-New York frontier to 
 the St. Lawrence. A commission tried to 
 settle the dispute and failed. Then it was 
 referred to the arbitration of the King of 
 The Netherlands. Both countries rejected 
 his decision and the quarrel was renewed 
 with greater intensity of feeling than ever. 
 Then a modus-vivendi established a tem- 
 porary boundary line which was ignored by 
 the people on both sides. 
 
 The border warfare which followed 
 brought the United States and Great Brit- 
 ain so close to war that congress author- 
 ized the President to call out the militia 
 and voted $10,000,000 for national defense. 
 General Winfield Scott, commander-in- 
 
 85 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 chief of the army, was sent to the frontier, 
 and war was all but declared. Happily, 
 however, General Scott had been trained 
 in the rough diplomacy of war and he was 
 able to arrange a temporary truce which 
 led, after some further delays, to a perma- 
 nent treaty, signed in 1842. 
 
 Again, the boundary from the Rocky 
 mountains to the Pacific nearly brought the 
 countries into war. The United States 
 claimed the whole territory along the Pa- 
 cific from California to the Russian pos- 
 sessions, at 54 degrees 40 minutes, and in 
 the national campaign in 1844, ''Fifty- 
 four forty or figlit," was the watchword. 
 President Polk was elected on this issue, 
 but his secretary of state, James Buchanan, 
 signed a treaty with the British minister, 
 yielding all of British Columbia to Great 
 Britain, although American rights to the 
 whole territory had been declared to be un- 
 questionable by the democratic national 
 convention and by a democratic president. 
 
 In 1859 the United States again had to 
 face the possibility of war over the pos- 
 
 83 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 session of San Juan island, near Vancou- 
 ver, and again General Winfield Scott was 
 to settle the dispute, without war if possi- 
 ble, but with war if necessary. Again the 
 bluif soldier arranged a truce, which con- 
 tinued until 1871, when the decision of the 
 Emperor of Germany, to whom the dispute 
 had been referred, gave San Juan island to 
 the United States. 
 
 Therefore, Canada's threats of war over 
 the Alaskan boundary, while never regard- 
 ed seriously in the United States, or, for 
 that matter in Great Britain, proved that 
 irritation sufficient for a serious quarrel 
 existed. 
 
 Canada insisted on submitting the Alas- 
 kan boundary to an arbitration tribunal. 
 This was natural enough, perhaps, for Can- 
 ada had nothing to lose. But the Ameri- 
 can people, without party distinction, op- 
 posed arbitration. The United States had 
 been in peaceful and practically undis- 
 puted possession of the territory since 1867. 
 Prior to that year Russia had held undis- 
 puted possession since 1825. "Why should 
 
 87 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 the United States arbitrate over the pos- 
 session of her own territory? 
 
 But Canada was terribly in earnest. 
 There were only two ways of reaching the 
 Klondike— one by the Yukon river, which 
 was open only during a short time during 
 the summer, and the other by the Lynn 
 canal and a long portage across the moun- 
 tains. The Yukon route was entirely with- 
 in American territory until the edge of the 
 Klondike gold field was reached. Miners 
 going by the Lynn canal and starting from 
 Dyea or Skaguay passed over ' American 
 territory until they reached the summit of 
 the mountains, where they reached the Ca- 
 nadian line and became subject to Cana- 
 dian tariffs and Canadian laws. The Klon- 
 dike region could not successfully be ap- 
 proached wholly on British territory. The 
 trail from the inhabited portions of Brit- 
 ish Columbia was long and terrible, and 
 most of the hardy Canadian prospectors 
 who tried it died on the way. 
 
 It was evident, therefore, that while the 
 British government actually owned the 
 
 88 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Klondike gold field it could not get to it 
 except by passing through territory owned 
 by the United States. British mining sup- 
 plies would have to be brought into the 
 United States, pay duties at Dyea or Skag- 
 uay and then be taken back into British 
 territory. This gave the United States con- 
 trol of the food question and the food ques- 
 tion controlled the Klondike gold fields. 
 
 It became absolutely necessary for the 
 Canadians to find a gateway to the sea 
 without striking a custom house flying the 
 American flag. Therefore Canadians be- 
 gan to study the maps of Alaska, and to 
 look up the treaties covering the various 
 transfers of Alaska. 
 
 As a result of their hasty study the Ca- 
 nadians claimed that the American ports 
 of Dyea and Skaguay were on British soil. 
 The preposterous claim advanced so un- 
 expectedly by Canada necessarily leads to 
 a brief review of the several treaties cover- 
 ing the sea frontier of Alaska. 
 
 In 1821 a Russian ukase asserted a claim 
 to exclusive jurisdiction of a tract of ocean 
 
 89 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 100 miles from the mainland of Northeast- 
 ern Asia, and a similar distance from the 
 northwest coast of North America, which 
 long had been occupied by Russian fur 
 traders. In. addition Russia asserted that 
 its strip of coast, now known as the Alaska 
 pan handle, ran down among the fringe of 
 islands of the fifty-first parallel, north lati- 
 tude. This claim deprived British Colum- 
 bia of access to the Pacific ocean. 
 
 Right here is a point which has frequent- 
 ly been overlooked in all discussion of the 
 Alaskan boundary dispute. Russia's claim 
 of 1821 brought that empire into dispute 
 with the United States, which at that time 
 claimed that the territory of Oregon ex- 
 tended along the Pacific coast north to the 
 55th degree of north latitude. Russia, 
 therefore, claimed 250 miles of coast also 
 claimed by the United States. The United 
 States promptly protested, and as Russia 
 was not in position to back up her extrav- 
 agant claim she signed a treaty with the 
 United States in 1824, withdrawing all 
 
 90 
 
HKXRY C. PAYi\E, 
 I'o.stniaster-Geueral. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 claims to the Pacific coast south of the 
 fifty-fifth parallel of latitude. 
 
 In the following year, 1825, Russia and 
 the United States signed a treaty deter- 
 mining the boundary between Russian 
 possessions in Alaska and the British 
 Northwest territory. This treaty defined 
 the boundaries of the territory sold by Rus- 
 sia to the United States in 1867. 
 
 On the surface this treaty was so plain 
 that no one not seeking a basis for an un- 
 just quarrel would hardly misinterpret it. 
 The boundary remained without dispute 
 from 1825 until 1898. Under the treaty 
 of 1825, the boundary line ran from the 
 southernmost point of Prince of Wales is- 
 land, north along Portland Channel to the 
 fifty-sixth degree of north latitude, 
 then northward, following the summits 
 of the mountains parallel to the coast. It 
 was expressly stated that wherever the 
 summits of the mountains shall prove to 
 be at a distance of more than ten marine 
 leagues from the ocean the line should be 
 formed by a line parallel to the windings 
 
 ei 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 (sinuosities) of the coast, never exceeding 
 the distance of ten marine leagues there- 
 from. This was the boundary agreed upon 
 by Russia and the United States -when the 
 latter purchased Alaska in 1867. 
 
 In 1898 the Canadians suddenly discov- 
 ered that the treaty did not mean what it 
 said. They asserted that whereas the 
 treaty said ''Portland Channel," it meant 
 *'Behm Channel," and that where the 
 treaty referred to the windings of the coast 
 it did not mean *' coast," but islands. This 
 was the only basis for the claims made so 
 excitedly by Canada after gold had been 
 discovered in the Klondike. But Canada 
 was hunting for a tide water port. 
 
 Thus the dispute began. Canada first 
 insisted that the thirty-mile strip should 
 be measured from the outside (western) 
 line of the string of islands that fringes 
 the Alaskan pan handle. This, of course, 
 would have deprived the United States of 
 practically the Alaskan mainland south of 
 Mount St. Elias. It would have moved 
 
 92 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Dyea, Skaguay, Juneau and other principal 
 ports into British territory. 
 
 This claim was so absurdly extravagant 
 that it was laughed out of court. Canada 
 was forced by sheer ridicule to drop it. 
 
 Then the persistent Canadians, with their 
 eyes still fixed on the coveted ports of Dyea 
 and Skaguay, advanced a new claim. A 
 glance at a map of Alaska shows that the 
 Alaska pan handle is intersected by numer- 
 ous great bays. Although all geographers 
 and statesmen conceded that the ocean 
 boundary followed the windings of the 
 coast, because the treaty specifically so de- 
 clared, the Canadian geographers of the 
 new school advanced the claim that the 
 great bays on the Alaskan coast should be 
 disregarded, and that the ''general coast 
 line" should be assumed to jump from 
 headland to headland. 
 
 It was upon this adroit bit of geograph- 
 ical quibbling that Canada proposed to 
 base a suit before a court of arbitration. 
 The United States naturally refused. Pres- 
 ident Roosevelt refused to submit claims to 
 
 93 
 
THE TRIUMHPS OF THE 
 
 territory so long held by the United States 
 in undisputed possession to the final decis- 
 ion of a tribunal which would have called 
 in a foreign empire. 
 
 Canada having everything to gain and 
 nothing to lose, persisted in her demands 
 for arbitration. President Koosevelt as 
 persistently refused. Finally Canada sug- 
 gested a compromise. 
 
 "You keep Dyea and Skaguay and give 
 us P^Tamid harbor/' said the Canadians. 
 
 This was very much as if the United 
 States had laid claim to the south coast of 
 England and offering to compromise by 
 suggesting that England keep Portsmouth 
 and Plymouth, but give Southampton to 
 the United States. 
 
 Finally, President Roosevelt, in the ne- 
 gotiations with the British ambassador at 
 "Washington, stated his willingness to sub- 
 mit the controversy to a tribunal of six 
 men— three to be named by the United 
 States and the other three by the British 
 government. If the six men could reach a 
 decision the President was willing to abide 
 
 94 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 by it; but he would not consent to the se- 
 lection of a seventh man as umpire. 
 
 President Roosevelt's proposal was re- 
 ceived with a storm of indignation in Can- 
 ada, and with a feeling of uneasiness in the 
 United States. In this country a large 
 number of citizens — possibly a majority^ 
 were opposed to arbitration in any form. 
 But even their opposition to arbitration did 
 not shake the people's faith in the Presi- 
 dent, and as later developments proved, 
 their confidence was not misplaced. 
 
 The British ambassador accepted Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt's proposal and a formal 
 treaty was signed. The senate ratified the 
 treaty. The President lost no time in put- 
 ting the treaty into effect. With hardly 
 any delay he named as the American mem- 
 bers of the commission Elihu Root of New 
 York, secretary of war; Henry Cabot 
 Lodge, senator of the United States from 
 i^.Tassachusetts, and George Turner, late 
 senator of the United States from the state 
 of Washington. 
 
 05 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 The Canadian government objected to 
 the personnel of the American commission, 
 complaining to the British colonial office 
 that the men named by the President were 
 not 'impartial jurists of repute," as con- 
 templated by the treaty. The British gov- 
 ernment, however, did not regard the Ca- 
 nadian complaint as serious. 
 
 There was some criticism of the com- 
 mission in the United States, the assertion 
 being made that President Roosevelt should 
 have named judges of the supreme court. 
 It is due to the President to state, however, 
 that he offered a place on the commission 
 to two justices of the supreme court. One 
 declined, it is understood, on the ground 
 that he did not regard the post as in the 
 line of his duty. The other gave a similar 
 reason. 
 
 The British government named as its 
 members of the commission, Baron Alver- 
 stone, lord chief justice of England; Sir 
 Louis A. Jette, lieutenant governor of Que- 
 bec, and Judge John D. Armour, judge of 
 the supreme court of Canada. Judge Ar- 
 
 96 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 mour died soon after his appointment and 
 the vacancy was filled by A. B. Aylesworth, 
 a prominent member of the Toronto bar. 
 
 Details of the deliberations of the tri- 
 bunal need not be given here. The joint 
 commission held its first session in London 
 on September 3, 1903. The vast masses of 
 documentary evidence accumulated on both 
 sides had already been placed in the tri- 
 bunal's hands. The oral arguments began 
 on September 12, and continued for eight- 
 een days, with few intermissions. The tri- 
 bunal went into secret session on October 8, 
 and on October 20 its decision was deliv- 
 ered to the officers of the respective govern- 
 ments. Lord Alverstone united with the 
 three American commissioners in declar- 
 ing that the boundary line always claimed 
 by the United States was correct. The two 
 Canadian commissioners refused to sign 
 the decision, but it was gracefully, if not 
 cheerfully, accepted by the Canadian gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 The result of the Alaskan boundary ar- 
 bitration has been declared to be the great- 
 
 97 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 est diplomatic victory won by the United 
 States within the present generation, and 
 historians both in the United States and 
 Great Britain unite in giving the credit to 
 President Roosevelt, who had the courage 
 to submit the question to the award of a 
 judicial tribunal. It is but fair to say that 
 the President in agreeing to arbitrate did 
 so against the best judgment of many of 
 the wisest men in the nation. But he knew 
 the claims of the United States were just, 
 right and unassailable in any court of jus- 
 tice. He realized, too, that the question 
 would be a constant irritant between the 
 United States and Canada as long as it re- 
 mained unsettled. With his characteristic 
 courage and willingness to assume risks in 
 order to demonstrate fair play he resolved 
 to settle a vexatious dispute for all time to 
 come, and he did. 
 
 96 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 RECIPROCITY FOR CUBA. 
 
 WHILE he was engrossed with the 
 perplexing details of the negotia- 
 tions over the settlement of the 
 Venezuelan affair President Roosevelt 
 never for an instant relaxed his efforts to 
 secure for the new Cuban republic those 
 commercial advantages which virtually had 
 been pledged to her by the United States. 
 From the very beginning of his administra- 
 tion he contended that the honor of the na- 
 tion was involved in the granting of a re- 
 ciprocity treaty to Cuba. In insisting upon 
 this his purpose ran counter to the opinions 
 of many leading men in his own party ; but 
 even the opposition of republican leaders 
 and republican newspapers failed to move 
 him from his high conception of national 
 honor. A man less courageous would have 
 shrunk from so formidable an opposition 
 within the ranks of his own party. But 
 
 99 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 the President was persistent without being 
 obstinate. He neither coaxed, cajoled nor 
 threatened. He simply pointed to congress 
 again and again the path along which its 
 obvious duty lay. 
 
 And he won. His victory was all the 
 greater by reason of the fact that it was 
 won by the aid of his party and without 
 laying the foundation for party differences. 
 He won with the approval of his party, of 
 the press and of the people. 
 
 The story of President Roosevelt's vic- 
 tory for national honor forms one of the 
 most interesting chapters in the history of 
 his first administration. In his first mes- 
 sage to congress written within three 
 months after he had succeeded to the presi- 
 dency, he urged a Cuban reciprocity meas- 
 ure. He said : 
 
 ''In the case of Cuba there are weighty 
 reasons of morality and of national inter- 
 est why the policy (of reciprocity) should 
 be held to have a peculiar application, and 
 I most earnestly ask your attention to the 
 wisdom, indeed, to the vital need, of pro- 
 
 100 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 viding for a substantial reduction in the 
 tariff duties on Cuban imports into the 
 United States. Cuba has, in her constitu- 
 tion, affirmed what we desired, and we are 
 bound by every consideration of honor and 
 expediency to pass commercial measures in 
 the interest of her material welfare. ' ' 
 
 Congress took up the question of Cuban 
 reciprocity with neither alacrity nor en- 
 thusiasm. The ways and means committee 
 framed a bill granting a tariff reduction of 
 20 per cent, on all Cuban imports, on con- 
 dition that the Cuban government adopt the 
 immigration and contract labor laws of the 
 United States. The republican majority in 
 the committee did not act in harmony, and 
 it was reported to the house through the 
 votes of some of the democratic minority 
 members. 
 
 A strong republican opposition to the bill 
 developed in congress. The source of the 
 opposition, it was soon discovered, was in 
 the beet sugar growing interests of IMichi- 
 gan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Colorado, Utah 
 and California. 
 
 101 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 The republican opponents of Cuban re- 
 ciprocity—and they represented in the 
 main the beet sugar growing states— raised 
 the cry that the reciprocity proposal would 
 benefit the sugar trust. The charge after- 
 ward was proven to be without foundation, 
 but it served its purpose. Long before the 
 congressional session of the spring of 1902 
 was ready to adjourn it was evident to the 
 republicans who had stood by President 
 Roosevelt in his plea for the fulfillment 
 of the implied pledges of the United States 
 to Cuba, that the bill reported from the 
 ways and means committee could not be 
 passed. The President reluctantly decided 
 to abandon the effort. The President did 
 not propose to abandon his fight for Cuban 
 reciprocity. He determined to secure it 
 by another method— by the negotiation of 
 a reciprocity treaty with Cuba. 
 
 Before congress adjourned, however, 
 President Roosevelt sent in a special mes- 
 sage on the subject. In it he reviewed the 
 pledges made to Cuba and the efforts made 
 by President McKinley to carry out 
 
 103 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 the compact with the new republic. The 
 message was sent to congress on June 13, 
 and in it the President said in part : 
 
 ''Some of our citizens oppose the lower- 
 ing of the tariff on Cuban products, just 
 as three years ago they opposed the admis- 
 sion of the Hawaiian Islands, lest free 
 trade with them might ruin certain of our 
 interests here. In the actual event their 
 fears proved baseless. Their apprehension 
 as to the damage to any industry of our 
 own because of the proposed measure of 
 reciprocity with Cuba seems to me equally 
 baseless. In my judgment no American in- 
 dustry will be hurt, and many American in- 
 dustries will be benefited by the proposed 
 action. It is to our advantage as a nation 
 that the growing Cuban market should be 
 controlled by the American producers. 
 
 tF *7r tF 
 
 ''We are a wealthy and powerful nation; 
 Cuba is a young republic, still weak, who 
 owes to us her birth, whose future, whose 
 very life, must depend upon our attitude 
 toward her. I ask that we help her as she 
 
 103 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 struggles along the painful and difficult 
 road of self-governing independence. I ask 
 this aid for her because she is weak, because 
 she needs it, because we have already aided 
 her. I ask that open-handed help, of a 
 kind which a self-respecting people can ac- 
 cept, be given to Cuba, for the very reason 
 that we have given her such help in the 
 past. 
 
 ''Our soldiers fought to give her free- 
 dom; and for three years our representa- 
 tives, civil and military, have toiled un- 
 ceasingly, facing disease of a peculiarly 
 sinister and fatal type, with patient and 
 uncomplaining fortitude, to teach her how 
 to use aright her new freedom. Never in 
 history has any alien country been thus ad- 
 ministered with such high integrity of pur- 
 pose, such wise judgment, and such single- 
 minded devotion. Now I ask that the Cu- 
 bans be given all possible chance to use the 
 freedom which Americans have such right 
 to be proud of, and for which so many 
 American lives have been sacrificed.'* 
 
 104 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 The President's message was sent to con- 
 gress with the knowledge that its plea for 
 Cuba would fail. He knew that congress 
 had rejected his proposed policy; and yet 
 there was no trace of resentment, no hint 
 of disappointment, no tinge of bitterness. 
 
 Congress adjourned and the President 
 faced a delicate party situation. He felt 
 that he was right. He believed that the 
 people of the United States upheld his pol- 
 icy. A less greater man would have sought 
 to force an unwelcome policy upon con- 
 gress by cajolery, by pressure, by threat of 
 withholding patronage. Theodore Roose- 
 velt was not such a man. Through all the 
 trying period in which he faced a majority 
 in congress hostile to his policy he main- 
 tained the correct attitude of an executive 
 of a republic in which the people's repre- 
 sentatives make laws or refuse to make 
 laws, according to the dictates of their best 
 judgment. 
 
 Confident in the fairness and justice of 
 his policy, the President appealed to the 
 people, and subsequent events proved that 
 
 105 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 his confidence was not misplaced. Repub- 
 lican state conventions in practically every 
 state in the Union upheld his policy. There 
 were a few exceptions where state interests 
 seemed to be menaced by the proposal to 
 admit Cuban products into the United 
 States at lower rates of duty. 
 
 The republicans of Connecticut, at Hart- 
 ford, on September 17, commended the ad- 
 ministration of President Roosevelt, and 
 even at that early date, favored his renom- 
 ination, saying: 
 
 ''Especially we commend the President's 
 efforts to perform a plain duty and obtain 
 for this country a lucrative commerce by 
 arranging a judicious reciprocity treaty 
 with Cuba.'' 
 
 The Illinois republicans, at Springfield, 
 on May 8, 1902, endorsed the President's 
 policy and declared in favor of a reciprocal 
 trade treaty with Cuba. 
 
 At Indianapolis, on April 24, 1902, the 
 Indiana republicans endorsed the President 
 and favored *'just and liberal reciprocal 
 
 106 
 
AiiorneyCeiU'riil. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 relations between the United States and 
 Cuba." 
 
 Iowa republicans, at Des Moines, on July 
 30, 1902, endorsed the President's adminis- 
 tration in general and his Cuban reciproc- 
 ity policy in particular, Kansas republic- 
 ans did the same in their convention at 
 Wichita on May 28, 1902. Similar declara- 
 tions were made by Massachusetts repub- 
 licans at Boston, on October 3, 1902; by 
 Missouri republicans at Jefferson City on 
 June 25, 1902. Republicans in Nebraska, 
 New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode 
 Island, Vermont and Wyoming took similar 
 action. 
 
 In Minnesota the republicans at their 
 convention at St. Paul on July 1, endorsed 
 the President's Cuban policy, saying: 
 
 "We favor reciprocity with Cuba, urged 
 by President Roosevelt, by a plan which 
 will insure the profitable interchange of 
 commodities, insure to the benefits of both 
 nations, help the Cuban people needing as- 
 sistance, but the chief benefits of which 
 shall not enrich trusts, monopolies or for- 
 
 107 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 eign speculators, or which shall not inter- 
 rupt our home production. ' ' 
 
 President Roosevelt himself could ask no 
 more. He went no further. His endorse- 
 ment by the ^Minnesota republicans was all 
 the more gratifying from the fact that 
 Minnesota's republican representatives in 
 congress were among the foremost of those 
 who had opposed the reciprocity bill. 
 
 The Michigan republican convention at 
 Detroit on June 26 endorsed the Presi- 
 dent's administration, but refrained from 
 specifying the Cuban reciprocity measure. 
 This was hardly to be expected, because 
 IMichigan's congressmen had led the fight 
 on the bill ; and the republican convention 
 declined to administer a personal rebuke to 
 men whose sincerity could not be doubted 
 and whose motives in opposing Cuban reci- 
 procity could not be assailed from the 
 standpoint of the interests of their con- 
 stituents. 
 
 President Roosevelt was so confident that 
 the voters of the United States would en- 
 dorse his Cuban policy that he lost no time 
 
 loe 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 in negotiating a reciprocity treaty. In 
 November General Tasker H. Bliss, an ex- 
 pert in tariff schedules, was sent to Havana 
 as a minister plenipotentiary to negotiate 
 a treaty which should provide for a hori- 
 zontal reduction of United States tariff 
 rates on Cuban products of at least 20, and 
 perhaps 25 per cent., and a differential 
 tariff in Cuba in favor of American goods, 
 the latter to be effected not by a reduction 
 of the existing Cuban tariff on American 
 goods, but by an increase of it upon the 
 goods of all other countries. This latter ar- 
 rangement was recognized as necessary in 
 order to maintain a sufficient revenue for 
 the Cuban treasury. 
 
 General Bliss for the United States, and 
 Senors Carlos de Zaldo and Jose M. Garcia 
 Montes representing Cuba, signed the reci- 
 procity treaty at Havana on December 11, 
 1902. 
 
 The reciprocity treaty was laid before 
 the senate at Washington without delay. 
 But a new difficulty presented itself. The 
 opposition to the principle of Cuban reci- 
 
 109 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 procity itself was less marked, perhaps, 
 than in the previous session, but the new ob- 
 jection was raised that the senate alone 
 could not ratify a treaty making changes in 
 tariff schedules, and thus impair the rev- 
 enues. It was held that the house, in which 
 all measures affecting the revenue must 
 originate, necessarily would have to give 
 its consent to the treaty. 
 
 Ordinarily, treaties are ratified by the 
 senate alone. From the foundation of the 
 government it has been held that the treat}^ 
 making power rests with the President and 
 the senate. The right of the house to pass 
 upon treaties has never been recognized. 
 
 There were few precedents in the history 
 of the government to guide President 
 Roosevelt in reaching a decision on the 
 question. During the administration of 
 President Washington a treaty involving 
 the revenues of the government was ne- 
 gotiated and ratified by the senate. The 
 lower house believed that its constitutional 
 rights had been impaired and adopted a 
 resolution calling on President "Washington 
 
 110 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 to submit all the papers in the case to the 
 house. President Washington refused, and 
 not until the treaty was ratified by the sen- 
 ate and officially proclaimed did he send a 
 copy of it to the house ^'for its informa- 
 tion." 
 
 The same disputed question arose during 
 the administration of James Madison, when 
 he sent to the senate a commercial treaty 
 with Great Britain, negotiated after the 
 conclusion of the war of 1812. In his mes- 
 sage transmitting the treaty President 
 Madison recommended legislation by both 
 house and senate to carry the treaty into 
 effect. 
 
 President Roosevelt, after a conference 
 with leading members of the senate, de- 
 cided to follow the precedent established by 
 James Madison. It was agreed that the 
 Cuban reciprocity treaty should first be 
 sent to the senate. If it should be ratified 
 by the necessary two-thirds vote the Presi- 
 dent then would send a special message to 
 congress recommending the passage of a 
 
 111 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 law to carry the provisions of the treaty 
 into effect. 
 
 The Cuban treaty was not to have plain 
 sailing in the senate. First it aroused the 
 hostility of some of the senators from the 
 south, who declared that it was a blow 
 aimed at two southern products, cane su- 
 gar and tobacco. Senators Foster of Louis- 
 iana and Taliaferro of Florida took the 
 lead in this opposition from the south and 
 they sought to consolidate the opposition 
 to the treaty by inducing all the senators 
 from the south to enter a caucus. This 
 opposition looked serious at the time, as the 
 ratification of the treaty depended upon 
 the votes of all the republicans in the sen- 
 ate with five or six democrats additional in 
 order to secure the necessary two-thirds 
 majority. 
 
 Further, it soon became apparent that 
 the treaty as presented to the senate could 
 not be ratified until certain amendments 
 had been agreed to. As originally drafted 
 the treaty provided for a reduction of 20 
 per cent, of the tariff rates then in effect 
 
 113 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINIS TRATION 
 
 or afterwards to be put into effect. It was 
 asserted that if there should be a revision 
 of the tariff, or if the democrats should 
 come into power while the treaty was in ef- 
 fect and reduce the tariff rates 50 per cent., 
 the Cuban sugar planters would derive the 
 benefit. In order to prevent such a contin- 
 gency it was proposed that the 20 per cent, 
 reduction in tariff rates for the benefit of 
 Cuba should continue in force only for five 
 years. 
 
 This amendment, as v/ell as one or two 
 others, was not objectionable to President 
 Roosevelt or to the friends of Cuba, and 
 was agreed upon without friction. 
 
 On January 14, the senate committee on 
 foreign affairs agreed to an amendment 
 providing that the reduction of 20 per cent, 
 in the tariff on Cuban sugar should not be 
 further reduced by any preferential rate 
 given to another country. To be more ex- 
 plicit the text of the amendment may be 
 quoted : 
 
 "Provided, That while this convention 
 is in force, no sugar being the product of 
 
 113 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 the soil of the republic of Cuba shall be ex- 
 ported from said republic to the United 
 States at a greater reduction of duty than 
 20 per cent, below the rates prescribed by 
 the act of July 24, 1897 ; and provided fur- 
 ther, that while this convention is in force 
 no sugar shall be imported into the United 
 States from any foreign country at a lower 
 rate of duty than that imposed by the act 
 of July 24, 1897." 
 
 On the following day another amendment 
 was adopted by the senate committee on 
 foreign relations providing for a reduction 
 of 40 per cent, in the duty on American 
 cattle imported into Cuba instead of 20 per 
 cent. With these two amendments the 
 treaty was reported to the senate on the 
 same day, January 16, 1903. 
 
 From this time forward there was little 
 doubt that the senate would ratify the 
 treaty. On January 17 Senator Burrows of 
 Michigan, who had, in 1902, opposed reci- 
 procity with Cuba, assured the President 
 that the treaty would have the support, 
 with possibly one exception, of the nineteen 
 
 114 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 senators who had opposed reciprocity a year 
 before. 
 
 The debate in the senate continued until 
 March 19, 1903, when the treaty as amend- 
 ed was ratified by a vote of 50 to 16. All 
 the affirmative votes were cast by repub- 
 licans, with ten democrats. The negative 
 votes were all democratic except one, Mr. 
 Bard of California. 
 
 The amended treaty was returned to 
 Cuba for a ratification in its amended form 
 and in the meantime President Roosevelt 
 announced that he would call a special ses- 
 sion of congress in the fall for the purpose 
 of urging legislation to carry the provis- 
 ions of the treaty into effect. The Cuban 
 senate ratified the amended treaty on 
 March 29, and there the matter necessarily 
 rested. 
 
 The special session met on November 9, 
 and on the following day the President's 
 message urging prompt action. It had 
 been well understood that the special ses- 
 sion had been called for the purpose of 
 passing a Cuban reciprocity treaty and it 
 
 115 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 was equally understood by the country at 
 large that President Roosevelt had won his 
 battle. The ways and means committee 
 acted promptly and the bill was reported. 
 The opposition was only nominal and all 
 amendments were voted down promptly. 
 On November 19, ten days after the ses- 
 sion opened, the Cuban tariff bill passed 
 the house by a vote of 385 to 21. A roll' 
 call was not necessary. 
 
 No vote in the recent history of congress 
 has shown so remarkable a reversal of sen- 
 timent. On June 13, 1902, the President, 
 in a message almost pathetic in its plea for 
 justice and fair treatment for a young re- 
 public, just taking its place among the na- 
 tions of the world after a long and exhaust- 
 ing war for independence, appealed to the 
 republican majority in the house for lower 
 tariff duties for Cuba. The appeal fell 
 upon unheeding ears. On December 19, 
 1903, less than two years later, the house, 
 still with a republican majority, gave Cuba 
 a reciprocity tariff by a vote that was to all 
 intents and purposes a unanimous one. No 
 
 116 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 more striking tribute to the statesman-like 
 qualities of the President could have been 
 paid him. To persistently advocate a wise 
 national policy in the face of opposition is 
 one thing, but to advocate a wise policy 
 and to convert a hostile majority in con- 
 gress from almost indignant opposition to 
 one of eager complacency, is a triumph of 
 statesmanship that has fallen to the lot of 
 few men who have occupied the White 
 House. 
 
 President Roosevelt had opposed his 
 party without breaking with it. He had 
 advocated a policy opposed by many lead- 
 ers in his party without quarreling with 
 them. He won his fight for Cuban reciproc- 
 ity and retained the love and esteem of his 
 party colleagues. A greater man could not 
 have done more. A weaker man would 
 have disrupted his party. 
 
 There never was a question as to the suc- 
 cess of the Cuban reciprocity measure in 
 the senate ; yet the senate was not so prompt 
 in its action. The upper house of congress 
 has its own traditions and seldom departs 
 
 117 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 from them. It decided to vote on the Cu- 
 ban bill on December 16, a week after the 
 opening of the regular session, and it re- 
 fused to vote before that day. The special 
 session, therefore, expired by limitation be- 
 fore final action on the Cuban bill was 
 taken. 
 
 On December 16, therefore, the senate 
 passed the Cuban reciprocity tariff bill by 
 a vote of 57 to 18. Of those who voted 
 against the bill all were democrats, except 
 one, Senator Bard of California. 
 
 President Roosevelt signed the Cuban 
 bill on December 17, and on the same day 
 issued a proclamation declaring it should 
 be in full force and effect on December 27. 
 Thus ended the President's struggle with 
 his party to gain commercial advantages to 
 the new republic— a republic he had risked 
 his life on the battlefield to help create. 
 
 Time already has justified the wisdom of 
 the President's Cuban policy. Already 
 prosperity, shattered by the long contest 
 with Spain in the struggle for freedom, is 
 beginning to smile upon the island repub- 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 lie. Cuba is gaining daily in trade and in- 
 dustry and the United States has not lost 
 by the growing commercial advancement of 
 the island. 
 
 119 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 THE PANAMA CANAL. 
 
 THE victory of the policy of reciproc- 
 ity for Cuba had been won on De- 
 cember 19, 1903, a month and a day 
 after the new republic of Panama had 
 signed a treaty granting to the United 
 States the right to construct the Panama 
 canal, and with the history of that great 
 waterway, now in process of construction 
 by the United States, always must be asso- 
 ciated the name of Theodore Roosevelt. 
 
 There is no purpose here to claim for 
 President Roosevelt more credit for the 
 completion of the negotiations for the right 
 to construct, own and control the great 
 interoceanic waterway than he deserves. 
 But the history of current events may be 
 judged only by their results. A president 
 with less courage than Theodore Roosevelt 
 would have shrunk from accepting the re- 
 sponsibility that he assumed when he seized 
 the opportunity presented by a successful 
 
 120 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 revolution of the Isthmian states to secure 
 for the United States for all time to come 
 the ownership and control of the Panama 
 canal. For the clearness of his foresight, 
 for his quickness to grasp opportunities 
 which come to nations but seldom in a cen- 
 tury, and for his courage in facing possi- 
 ble but not improbable complications, the 
 President was assailed in congress and out 
 of it by men whose lives have been spent 
 in the service of the republic. He refused 
 to falter in the face of that criticism and 
 his course was upheld not only by the votes 
 of his own party in the senate, but by the 
 votes of his party opponents. And not only 
 was his policy endorsed, but the predictions 
 of war and disaster that were to follow, 
 proved to be unwarranted. The United 
 States owns the canal zone, is digging the 
 canal, and there is no war with the republic 
 of Colombia. 
 
 The history of the Panama canal enter- 
 prise would fill volumes. It can be given 
 here only in its broad outlines. A hurried 
 survey of the events connected with so great. 
 
 121 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 an enterprise will be justified, however, be- 
 cause the final chapter of that history is the 
 record of the greatest triumph of President 
 Roosevelt's administration. 
 
 A canal to cut the isthmus of Panama, 
 thus connecting the Atlantic and Pacific 
 oceans, has been the dream of nations for 
 centuries. The earliest explorers of the 
 American continent could not be convinced 
 that nature had raised so formidable a bar- 
 rier to commerce as that opposed by the 
 narrow ledge of morass and mountains that 
 connected the North and South American 
 continents. 
 
 Yasco Munez de Balbao, governor of 
 Darien, in 1513, plunged into the interior 
 of what he believed to be a continent. He 
 crossed a narrow range of mountains and 
 found— not the land of river and plain that 
 he expected— but the Pacific ocean. He re- 
 fused to believe that so narrow a strip of 
 land could di\^de two such mighty oceans 
 and he searched for a visionary channel. 
 Por nearly 200 years explorers were de- 
 luded with the belief that there was a nat- 
 
 122 
 
GEORGE B. CORTELYOU. 
 Secretary of Commerce and Labor. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 ural waterway connecting the two oceans, 
 and as late as the year ].771 geographers 
 sent to search for a rivei' that was believed 
 to flow through some hidden pass in the 
 mountains from one ocean to the other. 
 
 Meanwhile a land route from the Atlan- 
 tic to the Pacific had been surveyed in 1520 
 under direction of Philip V., King of 
 Spain, the city of Panama having been 
 founded three years before. During the 
 first century of Spanish rule on the Ameri- 
 can continent the growth of the isthmian 
 commerce grew so rapidly that the city 
 of Panama became one of the world's im- 
 portant ports. 
 
 In 1534 the King of Spain ordered a sur- 
 vey for an artificial canal — the first definite 
 step in an enterprise which the United 
 States to-day has undertaken to complete. 
 The first step, however, was not favorable 
 to the enterprise, Pascual Andagoya, then 
 governor of Darien, advancing the objec- 
 tion that to sever the isthmus would be to 
 question the wisdom of God, who for pur- 
 poses of His own, had raised a barrier be- 
 
 123 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 tween the two oceans. King Philip was too 
 good a Christian to oppose his views to the 
 evident will of the Almighty, and the pro- 
 ject as far as he was concerned was aban- 
 doned. 
 
 The years grew into decades and de- 
 cades swelled into centuries, but no fur- 
 ther efforts were made to realize the 
 dream of an interoceanic waterway. The 
 project was earnestly discussed, however, 
 and the more its importance became recog- 
 nized the more the stupendous nature of 
 the undertaking was realized and modern 
 engineering shrank from a task involving 
 so gigantic an effort and so great an out- 
 lay of money. 
 
 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the French en- 
 gineer, completed the Suez canal in 1869 
 at a cost of $100,000,000. When he began 
 the project he defied the predictions of the 
 best engineers of the world. But he com- 
 pleted it and cut the distance from Eu- 
 rope to India and the Orient in two. 
 
 Flushed wntli the success of the Suez 
 canal and with the plaudits of the world 
 
 124 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 ringing in his ears, De Lesseps declared he 
 would dig the Panama canal. 
 
 French interest had been directed to the 
 Isthmus of Panama in a languid way by- 
 Lieut. N. B. Wyse, who had for some years 
 been negotiating with Colombia for a 
 canal concession. In 1876 he organized in 
 Paris the Societe Civile Internationale du 
 Canal Interoceanic, and two years later 
 obtained a concession from Colombia. 
 But Wyse was only a lieutenant in the 
 French navy. De Lesseps was a name to 
 conjure with. The French people would 
 not invest in the shares of the Wyse com- 
 pany. They clamored for shares in a De 
 Lesseps company. De Lesseps in 1878 or- 
 ganized the Compagnie Universelle du 
 Canal Interoceanique. Money flowed into 
 the coffers in floods. Lieut. Wyse sold his 
 concession to the De Lesseps company for 
 $2,000,000, and then followed the years 
 of hope, disappointment, fraud, incom- 
 petency and disaster which followed the 
 great French engineer's project of realiz- 
 ing the dream of the centuries. 
 
 125 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 De Lesseps planned a tide water canal 
 72 feet wide, 291/2 feet deep. He declared 
 he could complete it in eight years at a 
 cost of $131,600,000. Examinations, sur- 
 veys and preliminary work delayed the 
 beginning of the actual undertaking until 
 1883. For six years the work was prose- 
 cuted with spasmodic energy. Each year 
 of the six was a tragedy. Incompetency 
 and roguery dominated the enterprise 
 from the beginning. The French press 
 was subsidized to conceal and misrepre- 
 sent. The thrifty peasantry of France, 
 deceived by the glamour of the enterprise, 
 poured the hoardings of years into the 
 enterprise, until $500,000,000 had been 
 taken and spent. 
 
 The first five years swallowed these 
 $500,000,000, and scarcely a beginning 
 had been made on the canal. One histo- 
 rian in Pearson's Magazine for 1903 de- 
 scribed the methods which permitted so 
 wasteful an expenditure of funds. He 
 writes : 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 ''Jungles, swamps and tropical climate 
 had to be overcome; fraud and incompe- 
 tency clogged the efforts put forward for 
 that end. Records of life on the isthmus 
 at that period show the lazy workmen lan- 
 guidly toiling in the sun a few hours each 
 day. Red tape, procrastination, misman- 
 agement, were universal. Expensive ma- 
 chinery brought from Europe was per- 
 mitted to rust in torrential overflows. 
 Steam dredges costing thousands of dol- 
 lars went to wrack and ruin while wait- 
 ing for backward contractors to blast out 
 a rocky ledge that prevented their opera- 
 tions. Ships loaded with material were 
 held in harbor under costly demurrage 
 while half their crews died of fever. 
 Through somebody 's foolish blunder loco- 
 motives of the wrong gauge were brought 
 from Belgium and allowed to sink where 
 they stood in mud and slime. 
 
 *' Floods demolished in a night the ill- 
 constructed work of weeks. The coolie 
 laborers died like flies. The contractors 
 cheated the negroes. Money which poured 
 
 127 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 into the isthmus in a steady stream from 
 France disappeared as if dropped into 
 quicksand, so far as tangible results were 
 observed. The sum of $5,000,000 was 
 spent in the construction of a single to^vn. 
 Costly hospitals were put up and expen- 
 sive medical stores were allowed to spoil 
 before being delivered to the doctors in 
 charge." 
 
 This pen picture of the first efforts to 
 dig the Panama canal inadequately re- 
 veals the causes which led to the collapse 
 of the De Lesseps company. In 1889 came 
 the crash. Ferdinand de Lesseps and his 
 son Charles were declared guilty of swind- 
 ling and were sentenced to prison. The 
 great engineer of the Suez canal died be- 
 fore the prison doors opened to him, his 
 name tarnished because he was a victim 
 of the men associated with him. 
 
 Thus ended the De Lesseps enterprise. 
 His company was dissolved, but almost 
 immediately another French company was 
 formed, the New Panama Canal Company, 
 from which the United States within the 
 
 128 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 last few weeks has received a title to all 
 its rights, property and interests in the 
 great interoceanic waterway by the pay- 
 ment of $40,000,000. 
 
 The engineers sent to the isthmus by 
 the New Panama Company estimated the 
 value of the De Lesseps company's plant 
 and the work already accomplished at 
 $90,000,000. They reported that the canal 
 could be completed for $180,000,000. On 
 December 26, 1890, the new company ob- 
 tained a ten years' extension on the canal 
 concession. Later Colombia agreed that 
 the ten years' concession should extend to 
 October 31, 1904, and still again the con- 
 cession was extended to October 31, 1910. 
 
 The new Panama Canal Company went 
 to work in a business-like way. It pur- 
 chased the Panama railroad. It obtained 
 powers to operate ships and steamer lines, 
 to carry mails, passengers and merchan- 
 dise, to construct wharves, warehouses, 
 telegraph and telephone lines. It pur- 
 chased an immense quantity of material 
 and gave every evidence of being backed 
 ; 129 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 by vigor and ability. But the new com- 
 pany failed — not ingloriously, like its pre- 
 decessor — but none the less certainly. 
 
 In all these years of misdirected French 
 endeavor there was a growing sentiment 
 in the United States for an isthmian canal 
 to be owned, operated and controlled by 
 the United States. At first it was taken 
 for granted that Colombia's concessions 
 to the French companies had forestalled 
 American enterprise on the isthmus. Na- 
 turally, therefore, the attention of the peo- 
 ple of this country became fixed upon the 
 Nicaraguan route. Here the United 
 States possessed exclusive rights, secured 
 by a treaty signed in 1867. As the public 
 demand for an American OAvned canal be- 
 came more insistent the Nicaraguan route 
 was the more strongly urged — so strongly 
 and so persistently, in fact, that in time 
 the Nicaraguan route came to be regarded 
 as the only practical one available to the 
 United States. 
 
 On February 20, 1889, the year which 
 marked the inglorious disaster to the De 
 Lesseps company, congress passed an act 
 
 180 
 
JAMES WILSON, 
 Secretax-y of Agriculture. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 incorporating the Maratime Canal Com* 
 pany of Nicaragua. That company se- 
 cured the necessary concession and began 
 work. From the start it became apparent 
 that the Maratime Company would not be 
 able to finance so great an undertaking. 
 Various efforts were made in congress ta 
 secure government aid for the company. 
 In 1891 John Sherman introduced a bill, 
 by the provisions of which the United 
 States guaranteed the principal and inter- 
 est of $100,000,000 in bonds to be issued 
 by the Maratime Company. Congress re- 
 fused to pass it. A similar proposal made 
 in congress in 1893 by Mr. Frye of Maine 
 met a like fate. In 1894 Senator Morgan 
 of Alabama introduced a similar bill. It 
 failed to appeal to the business judgment 
 of congress. 
 
 Then efforts were renewed in behalf of 
 private enterprise, along a different line. 
 Senator Morgan on June 1, 1896, on 
 March 16, 1897, and on May 5, 1898, in- 
 troduced bills in congress proposing that 
 the United States purchase 700,000 shares 
 
 131 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 of the Maratime Canal Company's stock 
 and guarantee the payment of the bonds 
 to be issued by that company. Congress 
 successively rejected all three of Senator 
 Morgan's proposals, but he returned to 
 the attack and on June 20, 1898, intro- 
 duced a bill providing that the secretary 
 of the treasury be empowered to take 
 925,000 of the million shares of the canal 
 company's stock, and in payment to issue 
 treasury warrants to the amount of $115,- 
 000,000 to cover the expenditure for canal 
 construction. 
 
 There was much of debate and much of 
 newspaper discussion, but the efforts to 
 induce congress to extend financial aid 
 to the extent of $100,000,000 or more to a 
 private incorporation failed. The people 
 of the United States had not forgotten the 
 bonds issued to aid the construction of 
 the Pacific railways. It is true, the gov- 
 ernment finally was reimbursed, but the 
 sentiment of the country was strong 
 against repeating the experiment. 
 
 In the meantime the United States had 
 
 132 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 engaged in war with Spain, and the voy- 
 age of the Oregon around Cape Horn had 
 taught a national lesson. The first popu- 
 lar demand upon congress after the sign- 
 ing of the treaty of peace was for the 
 immediate construction of an isthmian 
 canal. Congress could not ignore so in- 
 sistent a demand, even had its members 
 been so inclined. On December 7, 1899, 
 a bill was introduced in the house author- 
 izing the President to acquire from Costa 
 Rica and Nicaragua the control of the 
 territory necessary for the construction 
 and defense of a ship canal by way of 
 Lake Nicaragua. The limit of expendi- 
 ture was fixed at $140,000,000. 
 
 This bill passed the house on May 2, 
 1900, by a vote of 224 yeas to 36 nays; 
 92 not voting. The measure went to the 
 senate, but was delayed there by the 
 negotiations incident to the abrogation of 
 the Clayton-Bulwer treaty. The abroga- 
 tion of this treaty was deemed necessary 
 — as indeed it was necessary. It was nego- 
 tiated in 1850 and provided for joint de- 
 
 133 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 fense and control of any isthmian canal 
 thereafter to be constructed. The people 
 of this country were in no mind to assume 
 a divided responsibility, and insisted that 
 the isthmian canal, when constructed, 
 should be owned, controlled and defended 
 by the United States alone. A treaty 
 modifying the Clayton-Bulwer conven- 
 tion was signed by Secretary of State Hay 
 and Sir Julian Pauncefote, the British 
 ambassador, in 1899. It was rejected by 
 the senate at the unmistakable demand of 
 the people. A second treaty was nego- 
 tiated, and signed on February 5, 1900, in 
 which the Clayton-Bulwer treaty was defi- 
 nately abrogated as far as its reference to 
 the isthmian canal was concerned. The 
 abrogation of the compact of 1850 cleared 
 away the last diplomatic and political 
 obstacle to American o^vnership and con- 
 trol of the proposed canal. 
 
 While the diplomatic debris was being 
 cleared away, experienced engineers had 
 been sent into the field to examine not 
 only the Nicaraguan but the Panama route 
 
 1S4 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 as well. Congress had provided the funds 
 and President McKinley had named the 
 commission. The Isthmian Canal Commis- 
 sion held its first meeting at Washington 
 in June, 1899. Rear Admiral John G. 
 Walker, U. S. N., retired, was elected 
 president. The other members of the com- 
 mission were Lieut. Col. Ernst, U. S. A., 
 Samuel Pasco, George S. Morrison, Lewis 
 M. Haupt, civil engineer, Alfred Noble, 
 civil engineer. Colonel Peter C. Haines, 
 engineer corps of the United States army, 
 William H. Burr, civil engineer, and Prof. 
 Emery R. Johnston. Lieutenant Com- 
 mander Sidney A. Staunton, U. S. N., was 
 chosen secretary. 
 
 The commission took up the study of 
 the isthmian canal question without de- 
 lay. Five committees were appointed to 
 investigate the following subjects: The 
 Nicaraguan route; the Panama route; 
 other possible routes ; the industrial, com- 
 mercial and military value of an inter- 
 oceanic canal; and rights, privileges and 
 franchises. Working parties of trained 
 
 135 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 engineers were sent over the Xicaraguan^ 
 Panama and Darien routes. A committee 
 went to Europe to study the Kiel, the 
 North Sea and Manchester ship canals. 
 
 The several committees and the field 
 engineering parties completed their al- 
 loted tasks with as much expedition as 
 the importance of the great question per- 
 mitted. A preliminary report was sub- 
 mitted to congress recommending the 
 Nicaraguan route as being the most prac- 
 ticable and feasible one for an isthmian 
 canal under the control of the United 
 States. The cost was estimated, in round 
 numbers, at $189,000,000. The commis- 
 sion, as subsequent developments proved, 
 really favored the Panama route ; but the 
 French company, while acknowledging its 
 own inability to complete the Panama 
 canal, refused to surrender its valuable 
 concession to the United States for less 
 than $109,000,000. The Walker commis- 
 sion, after careful surveys and estimates, 
 declared the French company's rights 
 were worth ^-lOjOOOjOOO, and no more. 
 
 136 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Congress responded to the demands of 
 the country at once. President Roosevelt, 
 in his first message, urged congress to take 
 prompt action, but he recommended 
 neither the Nicaraguan nor the Panama 
 route. On January 7, Congressman Hep- 
 burn introduced in the house a bill direct- 
 ing the President to construct the Nicara- 
 guan canal and appropriating not to ex- 
 ceed $180,000,000 for the work. This bill 
 was debated two days and passed on Janu- 
 ary 9, by a vote of 308 yeas to 2 nays. 
 
 The passage of the Hepburn bill on 
 January 9, 1902, brought the French com- 
 pany to terms instanter. On the same 
 day President Bo, of the French company, 
 cabled from Paris that it would accept 
 $40,000,000 for all its property and con- 
 cessions in Panama. Two days later 
 President Bo repeated his cablegram, and 
 again on January 14 he cabled that he 
 had mailed a proposal to accept the $40,- 
 000,000. 
 
 ' The frantic eagerness of the French 
 company to get out of Panama had been 
 
 137 
 
 v.^-^- 
 
 C 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 foreseen by the Walker Commission, and 
 on it promptly presented a final report 
 recommending the Panama route. The 
 commission's reasons for favoring the Pan- 
 ama route were clear, logical and convinc- 
 ing. It was sho-vvn that the Nicaragua 
 canal would cost $189,864,062, and the 
 Panama canal $184,333,258. The Nicara- 
 gua canal would be 184 miles long, the 
 Panama, 49 miles. It would require ves- 
 sels 33 hours to pass through the Nicara- 
 gua canal and only 12 hours to traverse 
 the one at Panama. 
 
 The Hepburn bill directing the construc- 
 tion of the Nicaragua canal already had 
 passed the house. It was amended in the 
 senate after a lengthy and earnest de- 
 bate. The champions of the Nicaragua 
 route did not surrender without a strug- 
 gle; but finally they were compelled to 
 yield to a compromise. On June 19 the 
 senate's substitute for the Hepburn bill 
 was passed by a vote of 67 yeas to 6 nays. 
 The house, after some difficulty, accepted 
 the senate bill. It directed the President 
 
 138 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 to construct a ship canal from the Carib- 
 bean sea to the Pacific ocean, and pro- 
 vided funds not to exceed $180,000,000 
 for the purpose. He was authorized to 
 pay the French company $40,000,000 for 
 all its property, rights and concessions, 
 and to complete the Panama canal, pro- 
 viding he secure a good title and obtain 
 by treaty with the United States of Co- 
 lombia complete and perpetual control of 
 the canal zone across the isthmus. If he 
 could not secure such a title from the 
 French company, and such perpetual con- 
 trol from the United States of Colombia 
 within a reasonable time, he was to pro- 
 ceed with the construction of the Nicara- 
 gua canal. 
 
 The reader will scan the pages of Ameri- 
 can history in vain for an incident in 
 which congress imposed a greater trust 
 in a President. Congress, in effect, said 
 to President Roosevelt: ''Here is $180,- 
 000,000. Take it and build a ship canal. 
 Select your own route.'' History has re- 
 corded few instances in which a ruler has 
 
 139 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 been given so great a mandate. And yet 
 congress with scarcely a dissenting vote 
 placed this responsibility in the hands of 
 Theodore Roosevelt. The United States 
 senate is regarded by civilized govern- 
 ments the Avorld around as the most con- 
 servative deliberative body in the world. 
 From the date of the foundation of the 
 republic the senate never has been ac- 
 cused of arriving rashly or hastily at an 
 immature judgment. And yet in the sen- 
 ate there were only two men who voted 
 against the proposal to place in Theodore 
 Roosevelt's hands the tremendous respon- 
 sibility of selecting an isthmian canal 
 rout^, of choosing the men to direct the 
 construction of the waterway, and of ex- 
 pending so enormous a sum. And these 
 two men voted no, not because of any 
 lack of confidence in the judgment of 
 Theodore Roosevelt, but because they had 
 been the earnest and sincere champions of 
 a particular canal and they could not 
 bring themselves to the point of surren- 
 dering convictions that had been attained 
 
 140 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 by many years of careful study of the 
 greatest engineering problem that had se- 
 riously been proposed in many centuries. 
 The responsibility of selecting a route 
 for the isthmian canal was not of Theo- 
 dore Roosevelt's seeking. But when it 
 was placed upon his shoulders he accepted 
 its burden with the calm confidence of a 
 man sure of himself. Subsequent develop- 
 ments in the history of the canal enter- 
 prise have revealed not one false step, 
 not one mistake. Recent events on the 
 isthmus of Panama compelled President 
 Roosevelt to negotiate new treaties. He 
 was criticised at the time; but the criti- 
 cism came only from one man who had 
 persistently championed the Nicaragua 
 route and who would not give up, and 
 from a man who, under the enormous 
 stress of a pending national campaign, 
 sought to create a new political issue. 
 Neither of these men were upheld by 
 their own party colleagues. For a second 
 time the senate by a non-partisan vote de- 
 clared that President Roosevelt was right. 
 
 141 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 There were two phases to the negotia- 
 tions which resulted finally in the accept- 
 ance of the Panama route for the isthmian 
 canal. Congress passed the canal bill with 
 what is known as the Spooner amendment 
 on June 19, 1902. President Roosevelt 
 lost no time in beginning negotiations 
 with Colombia for a treaty which would 
 secure to the United States the perpetual 
 control of the strip of territory through 
 which the proposed canal must pass. 
 There were delicate subjects to handle, 
 for while Colombia apparently was eager 
 to have the United States construct the 
 canal, there was a natural aversion on the 
 part of the government of the South 
 American republic to surrender sover- 
 eignty over the canal zone. This diffi- 
 culty, however, was surmounted, and on 
 January 22, 1903, a formal treaty was 
 signed by Secretary Hay for the United 
 States and Dr. Ilerren, the charge d 'af- 
 fairs of the Colombian legation. This 
 treaty was ratified by the United States 
 senate on March 17, and immediately 
 
 143 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 transmitted to Bogota. By the terms of 
 the treaty Colombia leased the canal strip 
 to the United States for the period of one 
 hundred years in consideration of the pay- 
 ment of $10,000,000 down and an annual 
 rental. The United States was given the 
 right to fortify the canal and to maintain 
 a force of military police along its entire 
 length. This was necessary to ensure the 
 safety of the canal in time of foreign war 
 or civil strife. 
 
 President Marroquin summoned the 
 Colombian congress to meet at Bogota on 
 July 24, 1903, for the purpose of ratifying 
 the canal treaty. On August 17 the Co- 
 lombian senate rejected the convention. 
 The forces which worked to secure the 
 defeat of the treaty have never been fully 
 revealed; but there is evidence that a 
 strong cabal in Colombia believed, or af- 
 fected to believe, that by rejecting the 
 treaty and negotiating a new one a sum 
 larger than $10,000,000 could be secured 
 from the United States. 
 
 143 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 Colombia's refusal to ratify the canal 
 treaty led to startling but not unexpected 
 events. The congress at Bogota ad- 
 journed on October 30, 1903, and on Xo- 
 Yember 3, four days later, the state of 
 Panama seceded from the United States 
 of Colombia. The secession of Panama 
 had been foreseen in this country. It was 
 known for montlis that the people of Pan- 
 ama, whose future welfare and prosperity 
 were dependent upon the construction of 
 the canal, would sever their allegiance 
 from a republic so indifferent to their in- 
 terests. Many weeks before the formal 
 ■act of secession cabled dispatches to news- 
 papers in the United States told of the 
 active preparations for revolt, of the col- 
 lection of arms, of the plans of the lead- 
 ers. 
 
 The secession took place without a clash 
 of arms. It was precipitated by the ar- 
 rival at Colon of 500 Colombian soldiers, 
 sent by the Bogota government to prevent 
 it. The independence of the isthmian re- 
 public was proclaimed at Panama on the 
 
 144 
 
HOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 evening of November 3. The people were 
 practically unanimous for separation, and 
 the revolt was immediately successful. At 
 Colon the situation was threatening for a 
 few hours because of the presence of 500 
 Colombian troops, who sought to seize 
 the Panama railroad, cross the isthmus 
 and attack the forces of the newly pro- 
 claimed republic. Such a procedure, with- 
 out doubt would have led to a bitter 
 struggle along the line of the railroad, to 
 the indefinite demoralization of traffic. 
 This the United States, under its treaty 
 obligations, was bound to prevent. A force 
 of marines, forty in number, were landed 
 at Colon from the gunboat Nashville, and 
 these forty men were formidable enough 
 to hold the 500 Colombian soldiers in check 
 and to prevent them from carrying out 
 their threatened seizure of the Panama 
 railway. 
 
 President Roosevelt immediately took 
 steps looking to the formal recognition of 
 the new republic. On November 6 the 
 state department was notified that a pro- 
 
 145 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 visional government had been formed at 
 Panama. On November 7 'M. Biinau- 
 Varilla was appointed minister from Pan- 
 ama to the United States, and on Novem- 
 ber 13 he was formally received as the 
 duly accredited envoy of a sovereign and 
 independent state. This amounted to an 
 official recognition of the existence of 
 the new republic, and Great Britain, 
 France, Germany, Russia and other for- 
 eign powers followed the example set by 
 the United States within a few weeks. 
 
 Colombia protested vigorous!}^ and 
 threatened to invade Panama. For a few 
 weeks the attitude of the South American 
 republic was so menacing that the navy 
 department decided, as a precautionary 
 measure, to send a force of marines — 1,500 
 men in all — to protect the Panama rail- 
 road and to guard American interests 
 on the isthmus. Nothing, however, came 
 of Colombia's bellicose threats. Gen. 
 Rafael Reyes visited the United States in 
 hopes of averting action friendly to Pan- 
 ama, but his mission came to naught. 
 
 146 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 On November 18, 1903, a treaty was 
 signed at Washington, by which Panama 
 granted to the United States in perpetuity 
 the use, occupation and control of the 
 canal zone. In return the United States 
 guaranteed to maintain the independence 
 of the republic of Panama and agreed to 
 pay the new republic $10,000,000 in hand 
 and $250,000 annually. The treaty was 
 ratified at Panama on December 2 and 
 laid before the senate at Washington early 
 in the session. 
 
 The canal treaty provoked a violent out- 
 cry from a few men in the senate and 
 from a few politicians who imagined for 
 the moment that it might be made to serve 
 as a political issue. President Roosevelt, 
 however, was upheld by an overwhelm- 
 ing majority of the people, without re- 
 gard to politics. His few opponents de- 
 nounced him as having participated in 
 the spoliation of a republic with whom 
 the United States had always maintained 
 the most friendly relations. The Presi- 
 dent was accused of distorting a treaty 
 
 147 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ■with a friendly republic and thus making 
 it an aid to secession. The President's 
 assailants declared that he should have 
 construed the treaty of 1846 as requiring 
 him to uphold the sovereignty of the re- 
 public of Colombia in Panama, and that 
 therefore he should have used the armed 
 force of the United States — not to pre- 
 serve peace and order on the isthmus and 
 to maintain railroad traffic — but to pre- 
 vent the secession of the state of Panama 
 and to assist Colombia to regain control 
 over a people who had with scarcely a 
 dissenting voice proclaimed their inde- 
 pendence. 
 
 The clamor of the few partisan oppon- 
 ents of the President attracted only pass- 
 ing notice. A calm analysis of the noisy 
 vehemence of a few senators proved that 
 even the President's opponents had no 
 alternative course to suggest. The people 
 were quick to see that the President had 
 taken advantage of natural events to se- 
 cure rights for which the United States 
 
 148 
 
*) 
 
 ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 had been hopelessly negotiating for dec- 
 ades. 
 
 President Roosevelt, unswerved by the 
 personal attacks made upon him by the 
 friends of the Nicaragiian canal, or by the 
 handful of democratic senators who 
 sought to inflame the public mind against 
 him, boldly appealed to the people for 
 justification of his course. His message 
 to congress on the subject of the isthmian 
 canal will appear in future histories as 
 one of the greatest state papers ever 
 written. It was masterly in its presenta- 
 tion of the reasons which had actuated 
 the President. It was not a defense. It 
 was unanswerable. It left his detractors 
 without a peg upon which to hang an 
 argument. 
 
 Inasmuch as this message, read to both 
 houses of congress on December 7, 1903, 
 covered every feature of the controversy 
 with the United States of Colombia, it will 
 be reproduced here with only such 
 abridgement as the exigencies of space de- 
 
 149 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 mand. The President introduced the sub- 
 ject by saying : 
 
 ''By the act of June 28, 1902, the con- 
 gress authorized the President to enter 
 into treaty with Colombia for the building 
 of the canal across the isthmus of Pan- 
 ama; it being provided that in the event 
 of failure to secure such treaty after the 
 lapse of a reasonable time recourse should 
 be had to building a canal through Nicara- 
 gua. It has not been necessary to con- 
 sider this alternative, as I am enabled to 
 lay before the senate a treaty providing 
 for the building of the canal across the 
 Isthmus of Panama. This was the route 
 which commended itself to the deliberate 
 judgment of the congress, and we can 
 now acquire by treaty the right to con- 
 struct the canal over this route. The 
 question now, therefore, is not by which 
 route the isthmian canal shall bo built, 
 for that question has been definitely and 
 irrevocably decided. The question is sim- 
 ply, whether or not we shall have an isth- 
 mian canal.*' 
 
 150 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 President Roosevelt then reviewed in 
 detail the relations between the United 
 States and Colombia as affected by the 
 treaty of 1846 and passed on to a history 
 of the negotiation of the canal treaty, 
 saying : 
 
 "This treaty was entered into at the 
 earnest solicitation of the people of Colom- 
 bia and after a body of experts appointed 
 by our government especially to go into 
 the matter of the routes across the isthmus 
 had pronounced unanimously in favor of 
 the Panama route. 
 
 ''In drawing up the treaty, every con- 
 cession was made to the people and to 
 the government of Colombia. We were 
 more than just in dealing with them. Our 
 generosity was such as to make it a se- 
 rious question whether we had not gone 
 too far in their interests at the expense of 
 our own, for in our scrupulous desire to 
 pay all possible heed not merely to the 
 real but even to the fancied rights of 
 our weaker neighbor, who already owed 
 so much to our protection and forbear- 
 
 151 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ance, we yielded in all possible ways to 
 her desires in dra^ying up the treaty. 
 
 *' Nevertheless the government of Co- 
 lombia not merely repudiated the treaty, 
 but repudiated it in such manner as to 
 make it evident by the time the Colom- 
 bian congress adjourned that not the scan- 
 tiest hope remained of ever getting a satis- 
 factory treaty from them. The govern- 
 ment of Colombia made the treaty, and 
 yet when the Colombian congress was 
 called to ratify it the vote against ratifi- 
 cation was unanimous. It does not ap- 
 pear that the government made any real 
 effort to secure ratification. ' ' 
 
 Passing to the revolt on the isthmus 
 and the recognition of the new republic 
 of Panama, President Roosevelt said : 
 
 * 'Immediately after the adjournment of 
 the Colombian congress a revolution broke 
 out in Panama. The people of Panama 
 had long been discontented with the re- 
 public of Colombia, and they had been 
 kept quiet only by the prospect of the 
 conclusion of the treaty, which was to 
 
 153 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 tliem a matter of vital concern. When it 
 became evident that the treaty was hope- 
 lessly lost the people of Panama rose liter» 
 ally as one man. Not a shot was fired on 
 the isthmus in the interests of the Colom- 
 bian government. Not a life was lost in 
 the accomplishment of the revolution. 
 The Colombian troops stationed on the 
 isthmus, who had long been unpaid, made 
 common cause with the people of Panama^ 
 and with astonishing unanimity the new 
 republic was started. 
 
 *'The duty of the United States in the 
 premises was clear. In strict accordance 
 with the principles laid down by Secre- 
 taries Cass and Seward, the United States 
 gave notice that it would permit the land- 
 ing of no expeditionary force the arrival 
 of which would mean chaos and destruc- 
 tion along the line of the railroad and of 
 the proposed canal, and an interruption 
 of transit as an inevitable consequence.'* 
 
 Continuing, President Roosevelt re- 
 viewed the history of the isthmus since 
 1846, showing that scarcely a year had. 
 
 153 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 not witnessed an attempted revolution. 
 He gave dates and details of fifty-three 
 revolutions, rebellions, insurrections and 
 riots that occurred within a period of 
 fifty-seven years. The record of turbu- 
 lence and the strife of almost continuous 
 civil war President Roosevelt declared 
 proved that Colombia had been utterly 
 incapable of keeping order on the isthmus. 
 He continued: 
 
 ^'The above recital of facts establishes 
 beyond c[uestion, first, that the United 
 States has for over half a century patient- 
 ly and in good faith carried out its obli- 
 gations under the treaty of 18-46 ; second, 
 that when for the first time it became pos- 
 sible for Colombia to do anything in re- 
 quital for the services thus repeatedly 
 rendered to it for fifty-seven years by the 
 United States, the Colombian government 
 peremptorily and offensively refused thus 
 to do its part, even though to do so would 
 have been to its advantage and immeas- 
 urably to the advantage of the state of 
 Panama ; third, that throughout this pe- 
 
 154 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 riod revolutions, riots and factional dis- 
 turbances, instead of showing any sign 
 of abating, have tended to grow more 
 numerous and more serious in the imme- 
 diate past; fourth, that the control of 
 Colombia over the isthmus of Panama 
 could not be maintained without the 
 armed intervention and assistance of the 
 United States. In other words, the gov- 
 ernment of Colombia, though wholly un- 
 able to maintain order on the isthmus, 
 has nevertheless declined to ratify a 
 treaty, the conclusion of which opened the 
 only chance to secure its own stability and 
 to guarantee permanent peace on and the 
 construction of a canal across the isthmus. 
 ''Under such circumstances," said the 
 President, in conclusion, *Hhe government 
 of the United States would have been 
 guilty of folly and weakness amounting 
 in their sum to a crime against the nation 
 had it acted otherwise than it did when 
 the revolution of November 3 last took 
 place in Panama. 
 
 155 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ^'This great enterprise of building the 
 interoceanic canal cannot be held up to 
 gratify the whims, or out of respect to 
 governmental impotence, or to the even 
 more sinister and evil political peculiari- 
 ties of a people who, though they dwell 
 afar off, yet against the wish of the actual 
 dwellers on the isthmus, assert an unreal 
 supremacy over that territory. 
 
 ''The possession of a territory fraught 
 with such peculiar capacities as the 
 isthmus in question carries with it obliga- 
 tions to mankind. The course of events 
 has shown that the canal cannot be built 
 by private enterprise or by any other na- 
 tion than our own. Hence it must be built 
 by the United States. 
 
 ''Every effort has been made by the 
 government of the United States to per- 
 suade Colombia to follow a course which 
 was essentially not only to our own inter- 
 est and to the interest of the world, but 
 to the interests of Colombia itself. These 
 efforts have failed, and Colombia, by her 
 persistence in repulsing the advances that 
 
 156 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 have been made, has forced us, for the 
 sake of our own honor and of the inter- 
 ests and well being, not merely of our 
 own people, but of the people of the 
 isthmus of Panama, and the people of the 
 civilized countries of the world, to take 
 decisive steps to bring to an end a condi- 
 tion of affairs which had become intoler- 
 able." 
 
 President Roosevelt's message ended 
 the controversy. The senate debated the- 
 Panama treaty with its usual delibera- 
 tion, but its ratification was certain from 
 the beginning. An attempt was made to- 
 organize an opposition among the demo- 
 cratic senators, but it failed. The treaty 
 was ratified on February 23, 1904, by a. 
 vote of 66 to 14. President Roosevelt; 
 appointed the canal commission on Feb- 
 ruary 29, as follows: Rear Admiral 
 John G. Walker, U. S. N., retired; Maj.- 
 Gen. George W. Davis, U. S. A., retired,. 
 District of Columbia; William H. Burr, 
 New York; Benjamin M. Harrod, Louis- 
 iana; Carl Ewald Grunsky, California;. 
 
 157 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 Frank J. Ilecker, Michigan; W. B. Par- 
 sons, New York. 
 
 All legal steps to convey the title of the 
 French company to the United States have 
 "been completed inParis and the canal com- 
 mission already has made its first official 
 inspection of the canal route. The Ameri- 
 can flag is flying over the canal zone and 
 already work has begun on the waterway 
 which is to sever two continents, and link 
 two oceans, forever to be open to the 
 commerce of the world, under the protec- 
 tion of the United States. 
 
 158 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 THE MERGER DECISION. 
 
 THE decision of the United States 
 supreme court, sustaining President 
 Roosevelt's legal battle in defense 
 of the rights of the common people, and 
 to prevent the consolidation of great rail- 
 way systems, came within a few months 
 after his triumph in securing reciprocity 
 for Cuba and in insuring the immediate 
 construction of the Panama canal. 
 
 The United States supreme court, in a 
 decision announced on March 14, 1904, 
 declared that the control of the Northern 
 Pacific and Great Northern railways by 
 the Northern Securities Company was an 
 ingenious plan to consolidate two parallel 
 and competing lines of railroad by the 
 device of a holding company, and that 
 therefore it was a violation of the federal 
 law, because it was a combination in re- 
 straint of trade. 
 
 159 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 The decision of the supreme court was 
 a remarkable tribute to President Roose- 
 velt. It was the President that directed 
 the attorney general to bring the suit 
 against the Northern Securities Company. 
 It was the President who urged the enact- 
 ment of the law by congress which 
 enabled, or required, the federal courts 
 to expedite the suits. No other President 
 'ever attacked so boldly and so vigorously 
 so great an aggregation of capitalized in- 
 terests. 
 
 President Roosevelt is not an enemy of 
 capital. He is not a rampant ''trust bus- 
 ter." But in the formation of the North- 
 ern Securities Company he saw, more 
 quickly than any one else, a menace to 
 the business interests of the country. If 
 the Northern Securities Company could 
 by a bold subterfuge control two or three 
 great transcontinental lines of railroad, 
 ^ "Western Securities Company" could 
 consolidate the remaining lines to the Pa- 
 cific — ail ''Eastern Securities Company" 
 could unite the great Atlantic seaboard 
 
 160 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 lines — a ^'Southern Securities Company '* 
 could control the great lines leading to 
 the gulf — and finally all these ''security 
 companies" might themselves be united 
 into a ''United States Securities Com- 
 pany ' ' and thus in time every line of rail- 
 road might have been brought under the 
 control of a single syndicate of men. The 
 possibilities of injury to the commercial 
 interests of the United States were unlim- 
 ited. All competition would have been 
 throttled. Some interests would have been 
 favored at the expense of others. Such a 
 syndicate — and it was contemplated — 
 would have dictated the price the farmer 
 should receive for his grain, the price the 
 mill owner should receive for his product, 
 the price the mine operator should receive 
 for his coal and iron. From dictating 
 prices to the great mining and manufac- 
 turing industries of the country to actu- 
 ally owning them would have been an 
 easy step for a holding company that had 
 absolute control of the transportation in- 
 terests of the United States. 
 
 161 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 The formation of the Northern Securi- 
 ties Company was the boldest attack ever 
 made by consolidated capital upon the 
 real business interests of the country. 
 President Roosevelt attacked it — not be- 
 cause it was a combination of capital, 
 merely, but because it was a menace to 
 the farmer, the business man, the small 
 manufacturer. 
 
 The Northern Securities Company was 
 incorporated, under the laws of the state 
 of New Jersey, on November 13, 1901, a 
 few weeks after Theodore Roosevelt had 
 taken up the unfinished administration of 
 President McKinley. It was capitalized 
 to the enormous amount of $400,000,000. 
 Only one company ever incorporated — 
 the United States Steel Corporation — had 
 a larger capital stock. The company was 
 organized through the efforts of James 
 J. Hill, president of the Great Northern 
 Railroad Company, for the purpose of 
 taking over and holding the stocks of the 
 Northern Pacific and the Great Northern 
 railways. The formation of the company 
 
 162 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 gave one set of men control of the two 
 great transcontinental systems of the 
 northwest, reaching from Chicago and St. 
 Paul to Puget sound, on the Pacific ocean. 
 
 President Roosevelt saw at once that 
 the Northern Securities Company was an 
 organization in restraint of trade, and by 
 his direction the attorney general brought 
 suit in the United States circuit court at 
 St. Paul, under the Sherman anti-trust act 
 of 1890. 
 
 The President's attitude toward the 
 capitalized interests of the country had 
 been clearly defined in the first message he 
 sent to congress, on December 3 — less 
 than a month after James J. Hill, J. Pier- 
 pont Morgan, E. H. Harriman and others 
 powerful in the financial world, had defied 
 the law by organizing the Northern Se- 
 curities Company. In that message the 
 President said : 
 
 ^'The tremendous and highly complex 
 industrial development which went on 
 with ever accelerated rapidity during the 
 latter half of the nineteenth century 
 
 163 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 brings us face to face, at the beginning 
 of the twentieth, with very serious social 
 problems. The old laws and the old cus- 
 toms which had almost the binding force 
 of law were once quite sufficient to regu- 
 late the accumulation of wealth. Since 
 the industrial changes which so enormous- 
 ly have increased the productive power 
 of mankind, they are no longer sufficient. 
 
 ''The growth of cities has gone on be- 
 yond comparison faster than the gro^rth 
 of the country, and the upbuilding of the 
 great industrial centers has meant a start- 
 ling increase, not merely in the aggregate 
 of wealth, but in the number of very large 
 individual, and especially of very large 
 corporate, fortunes. The creation of 
 these great corporate fortunes has not 
 been due to the tariff nor to any other 
 governmental action, but to natural 
 causes in the business world, operating in 
 other countries a.s they operate in our 
 own. 
 
 ''The process has aroused much antag- 
 onism, a great part of which is wholly 
 
 1&4 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 without warrant. It is not true that as 
 the rich have grown richer the poor have 
 grown poorer. On the contrary, never be- 
 fore has the average man, the wage work- 
 er, the farmer, the small trader, been so 
 well off as in this country and at the pres- 
 ent time. 
 
 ^' There have been abuses connected with 
 the accumulation of wealth; yet it re- 
 mains true that a fortune accumulated in 
 legitimate business can be accumulated 
 by the person specially benefited only on 
 condition of conferring immense inciden- 
 tal benefits upon others. Successful en- 
 terprise, of the type which benefits all 
 mankind, can only exist if the conditions 
 are such as to offer great prizes as the re- 
 wards of success. 
 
 ''The captains of industry, who have 
 driven the railway systems across this 
 continent, who have built up our com- 
 merce, who have developed our manufac- 
 tures, have, on the whole, done great good 
 to our people. "Without them the material 
 
 165 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 development of which we are so justly 
 proud could never have taken place." 
 
 President Roosevelt then pointed out 
 the necessity for caution in dealing with 
 the corporations. He boldly declared 
 that ''for the government to undertake 
 by crude and ill-considered legislation, to 
 do what may turn out to be bad, would 
 be to incur the risk of such far-reaching 
 national disaster that it would be prefer- 
 able to undertake nothing at all." He 
 then presented the other side of the ques- 
 tion, saying: 
 
 "Yet it is also true that there are real 
 and grave evils, one of the chief being 
 overcapitalization, because of its many 
 baleful consequences; and a resolute and 
 practical effort must be made to correct 
 these evils. 
 
 "It is no limitation of property rights 
 or freedom of contract to require that 
 when men receive from the government 
 the privilege of doing business under cor- 
 porate form, w^hich frees them from indi- 
 vidual responsibility, and enables them 
 
 166 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 to call into tlieir enterprise the capital 
 of the public, they shall do so upon abso- 
 lutely truthful representations as to the 
 value of the property in which the capital 
 is to be invested. 
 
 ''Corporations engaged in interstate 
 commerce should be regulated, if they are 
 found to exercise a license working to 
 the public injury. It should be as much 
 the aim of those who seek for social bet- 
 terment to rid the business world of 
 crimes of cunning as to rid the entire body 
 politic of crimes of violence. Great cor- 
 porations exist only because they are 
 created and safeguarded by our institu- 
 tions ; and it is, therefore, our duty to see 
 that they work in harmony with these in- 
 stitutions." 
 
 Turning to the remedies for existing 
 evils, President Roosevelt advocated no 
 radical ''trust smashing" policy. He did 
 not seek to inflame the public mind 
 against wealth. He was conservative 
 without being overcautious. He gave the 
 impression of a man who proposed that 
 
 167 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 the government should do its duty toward 
 the whole people, but that no false start 
 should be made. He continued : 
 
 ''The first essential in determining how 
 to deal with the great industrial combina- 
 tions is knowledge of the facts — publicly. 
 In the interests of the public, the govern- 
 ment should have the right to inspect and 
 examine the workings of the great cor- 
 porations engaged in interstate busi- 
 ness. Publicity is the only sure remedy 
 which we can now invoke. Wliat further 
 remedies are needed in the way of gov- 
 ernmental regulation, or taxation, can 
 only be determined after publicity has 
 been obtained, by process of law, and in 
 the course of administration. The first 
 requisite is knowledge, full and complete 
 — knowledge w^hich may be made public 
 to all the world. 
 
 ''The nation should without interfering 
 with the power of the states in the matter 
 itself, also assume power of supervision 
 of and regulation over all corporations 
 doing an interstate business. This is es- 
 
 168 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 pecially true where the corporation de- 
 rives a portion of its wealth from the 
 existence of some monopolistic element 
 or tendency in its business. 
 
 ''There would be no hardship in such 
 supervision; banks are subject to it and 
 in their case it is now accepted as a sim- 
 ple matter of course. Indeed, it is prob- 
 able that supervision of corporations by 
 the national government need not go so- 
 far as is now the case with the supervision 
 exercised over them by so conservative a 
 state as Massachusetts, in order to pro- 
 duce excellent results. 
 
 ''I believe that a law can be framed 
 which will enable the national government 
 to exercise control along the lines above 
 indicated, profiting by the experience 
 gained through the passage and adminis- 
 tration of the interstate commerce act. 
 If, however, the judgment of congress is 
 that it lacks the constitutional power to 
 pass such an act, then a constitutional 
 amendment should be submitted to confer 
 the power." 
 
 169 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 Holding to the principles enumerated in 
 his first message to congress, President 
 Roosevelt could not permit the Northern 
 Securities Company to carry out its pro- 
 ject of consolidating two such great com- 
 peting and parallel lines of railroad as 
 the Northern Pacific and the Great North- 
 em "without making an effort to prevent 
 it. Such a consolidation, he believed, was 
 in violation of the Sherman anti-trust law 
 passed by a republican congress in 1890 
 and signed by a republican president, 
 Benjamin Harrison, on July 2, of that 
 year. 
 
 Up to the formation of the Northern Se- 
 curities Company the great railway inter- 
 ests had tacitly accepted the Sherman act, 
 because as yet no method had been de- 
 vised for successfully evading it. But the 
 device of a holding company, to own the 
 stock of two separate and competing lines, 
 and to exercise full control over both 
 while permitting each to retain its indi- 
 vidual entity, finally suggested itself. The 
 
 170 
 
CHARLES DICK. 
 
 Senator from Oliio. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Northern Securities Company was the re- 
 sult. 
 
 The attorney general of Minnesota at- 
 tacked the merger company in the state 
 courts and simultaneously President 
 Roosevelt directed the attorney general to 
 bring suit in the federal courts in behalf of 
 the United States government. The govern- 
 ment's suit was filed in the United States 
 circuit court at St. Paul, Minn., on March 
 11, 1902. Necessarily the hearing of a 
 case involving $400,000,000 consumed no 
 little time and the end of the year 1902 
 was reached with the end of the suit not 
 in sight. Then, too, the prospect of an 
 indefinite postponement of a final decision 
 in the supreme court of the United States 
 presented itself. Under the laws of pro- 
 cedure, the case was certain to go to the 
 United States court of appeals and from 
 that tribunal to the supreme court of the 
 United States, as it could only be pre- 
 sumed that the Securities Company would 
 not accept the decree of a lower court as 
 final. Between the circuit court to the 
 
 171 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 United States supreme court a delay of 
 from four to six years was inevitable. 
 Such a stay meant injury to the business 
 interests of the country. The exigencies 
 of a difficult situation presented itself to 
 the chief executive and with his charac- 
 teristic manner of going directly at a diffi- 
 cult problem he met the difficulty boldly 
 and without hesitation. 
 
 President Roosevelt called a conference 
 of republican leaders at the White House 
 early in January, 1903. He outlined his 
 plan for attacking the Northern Securities 
 Company and asked for legislation to ex- 
 pedite the suits. Under the prevailing 
 practice of the courts a decision in the 
 United States supreme court could not be 
 reached under several years. As a result 
 of that conference a bill designed to ex- 
 pedite anti-trust legislation was intro- 
 duced in congress. It passed the senate 
 on February 4, 1903, and the house on 
 the following day. President Roosevelt 
 signed it on February 11. 
 
 173 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION , 
 
 Briefly, the law provides that any suit 
 brought by the attorney general of the 
 United States under the Sherman act shall 
 be given precedence over all other cases 
 in the circuit courts and be assigned for 
 hearing at the earliest practicable date, 
 before not less than three circuit judges. 
 Any appeal from the decision of the cir- 
 cuit judges must go direct to the United 
 States supreme court. 
 
 President Roosevelt did more than to 
 ask for and secure the law expediting 
 anti-trust litigation, but he asked for 
 funds. Congress, already imbued with 
 confidence in the executive, placed half a 
 million dollars in his hands for the prose- 
 cution of cases under the Sherman act. 
 This fund was to be used for the employ- 
 ment of special counsel and agents. The 
 amount was provided for in the legisla- 
 tive, executive and judicial appropriation 
 bill approved on February 26, 1903. 
 
 Four judges of the circuit court — name- 
 ly, A. M. Thayer, H. C. Caldwell, Walter 
 H. Sanborn and Willis Vandevanter — 
 
 173 
 
THE TRir^MPHS OF THE 
 
 heard the government's ease against the 
 Northern Securities Company. The gov- 
 ernment's case was ably presented on 
 both sides, and the arguments of the op- 
 posing counsel were elaborate. 
 
 On April 9, 1903, the four judges who 
 had heard the case, by unanimous agree- 
 ment, decided that the Northern Securi- 
 ties Company was an illegal combination 
 within the meaning of the Sherman act. 
 A decree was entered adjudging that the 
 stock of the Northern Pacific and Great 
 Northern companies was acquired by the 
 Northern Securities Company by virtue of 
 a combination in restraint of trade and 
 commerce among the several states, such 
 as the Sherman anti-trust act of 1890 de- 
 nounces as illegal. The decree further 
 directed the dissolution of the Northern 
 Securities Company and the return to the 
 stockholders of the Northern Pacific and 
 Great Northern the shares they had given 
 in return for Northern Securities stock. 
 
 The decision of the four circuit judges 
 left the Northern Securities Company but 
 
 17} 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 little ground to stand upon. The court, 
 after reciting the facts of the merger, 
 declared : 
 
 ''The scheme which was thus devised 
 and consummated led inevitably to the 
 following results: 
 
 ''First, it placed the control of the two 
 roads in the hands of a single person — 
 to-wit, the Securities Company — by virtue 
 of the ownership of a large majority of 
 the stock of both companies. 
 
 *' Second, it destroyed every motive for 
 competition between two roads engaged 
 in interstate traffic, which were natural 
 competitors for business, by pooling the 
 earnings of the two roads for the common 
 benefit of the stockholders of both com- 
 panies." 
 
 The four judges were in full accord in 
 the findings in law and in fact. The opin- 
 ion itself was ^vritten by Judge A. M. 
 Thayer. It was a triumphant vindication 
 of the Sherman anti-trust act. It estab- 
 lished that act firmly as a part of the 
 constitutional law of the land. It was a 
 
 175 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 decision that vindicated the statesmanship 
 of its distinguished author of the anti- 
 trust law, the wisdom of the congress that 
 passed it, and the courage of the president 
 that used it to attack the greatest com- 
 bination of capitalized interests ever 
 formed in the United States except one. 
 
 As had been foreseen, the case was ap- 
 pealed to the United States supreme court. 
 The decision of that tribunal was handed 
 down on March 14, 1904 — less than a year 
 after the decision of the circuit court and 
 only three days more than two years from 
 the day that the suit was begun in the 
 lower court. The opinion of the supreme 
 court sustained the judgment of the lower 
 tribunal in every particular. The North- 
 ern Securities Company was forced to 
 surrender the stock of the Northern Pa- 
 cific and the Great Northern Companies 
 and those railroads returned to the inde- 
 pendent position each had held in the rail- 
 way world prior to the formation of the 
 holding company. 
 
 176 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 The dissolution of the Northern Securi- 
 ties Company, as a result of the vigorous 
 assault of President Roosevelt, was accom- 
 panied by no shock to the financial world. 
 The President had destroyed a combina- 
 tion representing $400,000,000 of capital, 
 and yet not a dollar of vested interest was 
 lost to a single man. The Northern Se- 
 curities Company was destroyed, but the 
 Northern Pacific and the Great Northern 
 railroads remained, their stock as valua- 
 ble as it was the day it passed to the con- 
 trol of the holding company. 
 
 President Roosevelt proved to the finan- 
 cial world that its prosperity did not de- 
 pend upon the formation of illegal com- 
 binations. He proved to the people that 
 he had the courage to right a wrong, even 
 though the wrong represented so many 
 hundreds of millions of capital. His coura- 
 geous course proved that he could be 
 trusted by the people and that he need 
 not be distrusted as an enemy of lawful 
 enterprise. 
 
 ir? 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER VHI. 
 
 AN ARMY SAVED FROM HUMILIA- 
 TION. 
 
 THE war with Spain brought glory 
 and humiliation to the United 
 States — glory won when Dewey 
 and the intrepid commanders and men 
 under him sailed his fleet over channel 
 mines and past the batteries at Corre- 
 gidor island, entered the bay of ]\Ian- 
 ila, attacked the Spanish fleet and 
 destroyed it under the very guns of 
 the Cavite forts. Glory there was when 
 Leonard "Wood and Theodore Roosevelt 
 charged at the head of their rough riders 
 into the tangled jimgles at Las Guisimas 
 and won a victory from an overwhelming 
 force of Spanish troops, in the first land 
 fighting on Cuban soil. Glory there was 
 when the American soldiers — volunteer 
 and regular — swept up the hills of San 
 Juan and El Caney and planted the stars 
 
 178 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 and stripes on the crests. Glory there 
 was in all the land fighting in Cuba, where 
 the men under Shafter and Wheeler, Sum- 
 ner, Lawton, Chaffee, Wood and Roose- 
 velt marched and fought in dense 
 undergrowth of tropical vegetation, over 
 blind trails, across streams of un- 
 known depths, up hills surmounted by 
 hidden blockhouses. Enemy they could 
 see none. The smokeless powder from the 
 Spanish Mausers gave no sign. The dense 
 chaparral hid everything. The Americans 
 fought under burning sun and through 
 nights of pouring rain. They went hun- 
 gry and thirsty. They slept in trenches 
 filled with slimy ooze. But they won. 
 They proved anew the highest traditions 
 of the American soldier. Then, too, glory 
 there was when Cervera's fleet made its 
 hopeless dash for liberty on that ill-fated 
 Sunday morning. 
 
 Humiliation came before the glory was 
 won. Humiliation there was in the dis- 
 covery that the American army system 
 was not equal to so slight an emergency 
 
 179 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 as that which arose when the nation was 
 compelled to do battle with so decrepit a 
 nation as Spain. The army itself was 
 not to blame for the humiliation. The 
 fault lay with the men who had permitted 
 the army administration to become a 
 weakened, unserviceable machine. The 
 blame was with congress — not with the 
 army. Even so distinguished a member 
 of congress as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge 
 does not hesitate to place the blame where 
 it properly belonged. In his history, ''The 
 War with Spain," he reveals our national 
 humiliation, saying: 
 
 ''The American nav>^ wa3 ready, as 
 ships of war must always be, and when 
 the President signed the Cuban resolu- 
 tions, the fleet started for Cuba without 
 a moment's delay. With the army the 
 case was widely different. Congress had 
 taken care of the army in a spasmodic 
 and insufficient manner, consistently do- 
 ing nothing for it except to multiply civil- 
 ian clerks and officials of all kinds, who 
 justified their existence by a diligent 
 
 180 
 
EOOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 weaving of red tape and by magnifying 
 details of work until all the realities of 
 the service were thoroughly obscured. 
 
 ''Thus we had a cumbrous, top-heavy 
 system of administration, rusted and slow 
 moving, and accustomed to care for an 
 army of 25,000 men. An army of 200,000 
 volunteers and 60,000 regulars was sud- 
 denly demanded, and the poor old system 
 of military administration, with its coils 
 of red tape and its vast clerical force 
 devoted to details, began to groan and 
 creak, to break down here and to stop 
 there, and to produce a vast crop of de- 
 lays, blunders, and what was far worse, 
 of needless suffering, disease and death, 
 to the brave men in the field. 
 
 ''Thereupon came great outcry from 
 newspapers, rising even to hysterical 
 shrieking in some cases, great and natural 
 wrath among the American people, and 
 fault-finding from senators and represen- 
 tatives. * * * 
 
 "There was, undoubtedly, a certain 
 but not very large percentage of short- 
 
 181 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 comings due to individual incapacity, 
 which should have been rooted up with- 
 out regard to personal sensibilities. But 
 the fundamental fact was that the chief 
 and predominant cause of all the failures, 
 blunders, and needless suffering was a 
 thoroughly bad system of military admin- 
 istration. 
 
 "At the outset of our war we had a bad 
 system, and men laid the blame here and 
 there for faults of system and organiza- 
 tion which were really due to the narrow- 
 ness and indifference of congress, of the 
 newspaper press, and of the people nm- 
 ning back over many years. Today* the 
 system stands guilty of the blimders, de- 
 lays and needless sufferings and deaths 
 of the war, and war being over, reforms 
 are resisted by patriots who have so lit- 
 tle faith in the republic that they think 
 a properly organized army of 100,000 men 
 puts it in danger." 
 
 ^Written in 1899. 
 
 183 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Senator Lodge's severe but well de- 
 served arraignment of the indifference of 
 congress and people to the needs of the 
 army prefaced a long list of mistakes of 
 omission and commission in the conduct 
 of the war with Spain. There were many 
 that he did not refer to. The list of blun- 
 ders made up the sum total of humilia- 
 tion which the nation would like to for- 
 get. Soldiers were sent to a tropical cli- 
 mate in winter uniforms — or with khaki 
 blouses and heavy flannel shirts. Medical 
 stores w^ere incomplete. Railroad tracks 
 at Tampa were blocked for miles with cars 
 filled with supplies tightly shut by red 
 tape at which officers gazed helplessly. 
 There was no system for loading the trans- 
 ports. Hospital ambulances were shipped 
 — the body of the wagons in the hold of 
 one steamer, the w^heels in the hold of 
 another! There was no assignment of 
 regiments to transports — or else several 
 regiments would be assigned to one trans- 
 port. Some of the transports were old 
 and slow. Lighters and boats for disem- 
 
 183 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 barking men and supplies were forgotten. 
 
 But why dwell longer on so painful a 
 subject? Wlien Theodore Roosevelt be- 
 came President the people of the United 
 States looked to him to reorganize the 
 army. He had served in the entire Cuban 
 campaign. He had witnessed the humilia- 
 tion as well as shared in the glory. He 
 knew where the trouble lay — and all the 
 people knew that he knew, and were con- 
 fident that he would devote all the energy 
 of his tireless nature to weeding out 
 abuses and to remedy painfully apparent 
 defects. 
 
 The reorganization of the rotten, rusted, 
 broken-do-\\Ti army machine was a task 
 vrhich the American people expected 
 Roosevelt to perform. He set about it in 
 his usual prudent but vigorous way. He 
 has kept at the task. Some patriots who 
 never remove their eyes from the spoils 
 of office show a disposition to find fault. 
 They frequently raise the clamor that 
 Roosevelt aspires to be the ''war lord" of 
 the republic. They like to compare him 
 
 184 
 
KOOSEVELT ADMINISTKATION 
 
 to the Kaiser. They hint gloomily at a 
 ''military dictatorship." They even shud- 
 der at the prospect of a nation of 80,000,- 
 000 free citizens being ground beneath the 
 heel of a ''military despot '^ who, with an 
 army of 59^866 enlisted men, exclusive of 
 Philippine constabulary, Indian scouts 
 and the hospital corps, proposes to ride, 
 cowboy fashion, with lariat in hand, over 
 the liberties of the people ! 
 
 It is scarcely necessary to insult either 
 the President or the intelligence of the 
 people by denying these absurd fears of 
 partisan enemies. President Roosevelt is 
 only doing with the army what the peo- 
 ple themselves demanded he should do. 
 President McKinley had begun the work 
 of army reorganization immediately upon 
 the close of the Spanish-American war. 
 Roosevelt took up the work where McKin- 
 ley, stricken by the hand of an assassin, 
 was compelled to lay it down. He ac- 
 cepted the duty, just as he has accepted 
 all other responsibilities that came to him 
 with the presidential office. 
 
 185 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 In his first message to congress Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt urged upon congress the 
 necessity for a thorough reorganization 
 of the army. It is significant to note that 
 he did not ask for a greater army, but a 
 better one. He wrote : 
 
 **It is not necessary to increase our 
 army beyond its present size at this time. 
 But it is necessary to keep it at the highest 
 point of efficiency. The individual units, 
 "who as officers and enlisted men compose 
 this army are, we have good reason to be- 
 lieve, at least as efficient as those of any 
 other army in the entire world. It is our 
 duty to see that their training is of a 
 kind to insure the highest possible ex- 
 pression of power to these units when act- 
 ing in combination. 
 
 *'The conditions of modern war are 
 such as to make an infinitely heavier de- 
 mand than ever before upon the individual 
 character and capacity of the officer and 
 enlisted man, and to make it far more dif- 
 ficult for men to act together with effect. 
 At present, fighting must be done in ex- 
 
 186 
 
ETHAN ALLEN HITCHCOCK, 
 Secretary of the Interior. 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 tended order, which means that each man 
 must act for himself, and at the same 
 time act in combination with others with 
 whom he is no longer in the old-fashioned 
 elboAV-to-elbow touch. Under such condi- 
 tions a few men of the highest excellence 
 are worth more than many men without 
 the special skill which is only to be found 
 as the result of special training applied 
 to men of exceptional physique and mor- 
 ale. But nowadays the most valuable 
 fighting man and the most difficult to per- 
 fect is the rifleman who is also a skillful 
 and daring rider. 
 
 **The American cavalryman, trained to 
 manoeuvre and fight with equal facility on 
 foot and on horseback, is the best type of 
 soldier for general purposes to be found 
 in the world. The ideal cavalryman of 
 the present day is a man who can fight on 
 foot as effectively as the best infantry- 
 man, and who is in addition unsurpassed 
 in the care and management of his horse. 
 
 *'A general staff should be created. As 
 for the present staff and supply depart- 
 
 187 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ments, they should be filled by details 
 from the line, the men so detailed return- 
 ing after a while to their line duties. It 
 is very undesirable to have the senior 
 grades of the army composed of men who 
 have come to fill the positions by the mere 
 fact of seniority. A system should be 
 adopted by which there shall be an elimi- 
 nation, grade by grade, of those who seem 
 imfit to render the best service in the 
 next grade. Justice to the veterans of 
 the civil war who are still in the army 
 would seem to require that in the matter 
 of retirements they be given the same 
 privileges accorded to their comrades in 
 the navy." 
 
 Congress responded to President Roose- 
 velt's request and passed the law creating 
 the present General Staff. The change 
 from the old to the new system was made 
 so naturally that its immediate effect was 
 scarcely noticeable. The army today, as 
 the result of President Roosevelt's efforts, 
 is governed by a staff of trained officers 
 who owe their appointment to their recog- 
 
 188 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 nized ability, not to tlie mere fact of their 
 seniority in grade. 
 
 The army owes another reform to Presi- 
 dent Roosevelt. He had witnessed the 
 painful, humiliating mistakes that had ac- 
 companied the mobilization and transpor- 
 tation of an army to Cuba. He had not 
 only seen it but felt it. One of his first 
 thoughts upon becoming commander-in- 
 chief was to remedy the glaring defects — 
 defects due solely to lack of training of 
 officers and men. In his first message to 
 congress he made the following recom- 
 mendations, radical in the departure they- 
 proposed from all past experience in the 
 army. He wrote : 
 
 **Our army is so small and so much' 
 scattered that it is difficult to give the 
 higher officers (as well as the lower offi- 
 cers and the enlisted men) a chance to 
 practice manoeuvres in mass and on com- 
 paratively a large scale. In the time of 
 need no amount of individual excellence 
 would avail against the paralysis which 
 would follow inability to work as a co- 
 
 189 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 herent whole, under skillful and daring 
 leadership. The congress should provide 
 means whereby it will be possible to have 
 field exercises by at least a division of 
 regulars, and if possible also a division 
 of national guardsmen, once a year. 
 
 ''These exercises might take the form 
 of field manoeuvres; or, if on the gulf 
 coast, or the Pacific or Atlantic seaboard, 
 or in the region of the Great Lakes, the 
 army corps, when assembled, could be 
 marched from some inland point to some 
 point on the water, there embarked, dis- 
 embarked, after a couple of days' jour- 
 ney, at some other point, and again 
 marched inland. Only by actual handling 
 and providing for men in masses while 
 they are marching, camping, embarking 
 and disembarking, will it be possible to 
 train the higher officers to perform their 
 duties well and smoothly." 
 
 The President's suggestion was ap- 
 plauded by the entire country. The neces- 
 sity was apparent and the means practi- 
 \ cable. Congress provided the moans to 
 
 100 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATIOI^ 
 
 carry out the suggestions to a limited ex- 
 tent and for two years the field manoeuv- 
 res of the army and the national guard 
 regiments have taken place near Fort 
 Riley, Kan. The exercises were absolute- 
 ly unique in the history of the army in 
 time of peace. They were witnessed by 
 the trained military experts of Europe. 
 Great Britain sent Ian Hamilton, one of 
 its greatest generals, to study the man- 
 oeuvres, and his report, coinciding with 
 the reports of other foreign officers train- 
 ed in the science and art of war, fully jus- 
 tified the declaration made by Lord 
 Wolseley, commander-in-chief of the Brit- 
 ish army, to the effect that the army of 
 the United States, except in point of size, 
 is the best in the world. 
 
 President Roosevelt has done much for 
 the army. There is vigor in its adminis- 
 tration where formerly there was senility 
 and inefficiency. The officers work more 
 thoroughly in harmony. There is more 
 incentive to the younger officers to work 
 harder in order to prove their efficiency, 
 
 191 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 for no longer does the paralyzing effects 
 of the old regime of seniority hamper 
 their efforts. What President Roosevelt 
 has done for the army, he has done for the 
 navy. The officers of the navy now study 
 the problems of marine warfare — not in 
 text books — but in actual practice. The 
 naval manoeuvres off the Maine coast, in 
 Long Island sound and off Culebra island, 
 near Porto Rico, have taught naval offi- 
 cers how to solve practical problems of at- 
 tack and defense. 
 
 And all this to satisfy the ambition of 
 a president to be a "war lord," to enable 
 him to satisfy a craving for the ''pomp 
 and circumstance of glorious war?" Not 
 so. Listen to what he says : 
 
 *' Probably no other nation in the world 
 is so anxious for peace as we are. There 
 is not a single civilized power which has 
 anything whatever to fear from aggres- 
 siveness on our part. All we want is 
 peace ; and toward this end we wish to be 
 able to secure the same respect for our 
 rights from others which we are eager 
 
 192 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 and anxious to extend to their rights in 
 return, to insure fair treatment to us 
 commercially, and to guarantee the safety 
 of the American people/' 
 
 193 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THE UNITED STATES: A WORLD 
 POWER FOR PEACE. 
 
 THE war with Spain made the United 
 States a world power. In that strug- 
 gle, brief as it was, the aegis of the 
 Great Republic was extended to Porto 
 Rico, the sentinel island of the Atlantic, 
 and to the Philippines, at the very gates of 
 Asia. Just as the ]\ronroe doctrine had 
 made the United States the paramount 
 power on the western hemisphere, the 
 treaty of peace with Spain made the Great 
 Republic the dominant force in the Pacific. 
 No longer could the people of the United 
 States boast of the splendid isolation of 
 their republic. Their flag had crossed the 
 western ocean — to stay. 
 
 Call it the fortunes of war — call it ^Mani- 
 fest Destiny — call it what you will — but 
 from the day that the victorious armies 
 and fleets of the Great Republic shattered 
 
 194 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 the last remnants of Spain's once glorious 
 empire in the Atlantic and in the Pacific, 
 the United States became a world power — 
 no longer to be ignored in the councils of 
 the great nations of the earth. 
 
 With the United States in possession of 
 the Philippines the nations of Europe 
 could no longer ignore the rights of the 
 republic to a voice in the direction of Far 
 Eastern affairs. Prior to the war with 
 Spain Europe, recognizing the superior ad- 
 vantages possessed by the United States, 
 had been planning quietly but effectively 
 to close the doors of the orient to the com- 
 merce of America. China's interests were 
 not consulted. England, Germany, France 
 and Russia had practically divided that 
 slumbering giant, the Chinese empire, 
 among themselves. England had selected 
 for her ''sphere of influence" the entire 
 Yang-tse valley, stretching across the Yel- 
 low Empire from Burma to the Pacific. 
 France was conceded control of all of 
 China south of the Yang-tse valley. Ger- 
 many had taken possession of Shan Tung 
 
 195 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 and the northwest provinces, while Russia 
 was establishing herself in Manchuria, 
 with one hand outstretched toward Pekin 
 itself where one day she hoped to make 
 the greatest capital of the orient the seat 
 of Muscovite power in the Far East. 
 
 The United States was not consulted in 
 this proposed dismemberment of an em- 
 pire; but Dewey's guns conquered the 
 Philippines and the United States became 
 an Asiatic power, no longer to be snubbed 
 and ignored. 
 
 The powers of Europe did not welcome 
 the United States to the council board of 
 the Far East, but they admitted her, be- 
 cause there was nothing else to do. The 
 logic of the situation was with the Ameri- 
 can government and they were prepared 
 to submit and did submit to the inevitable. 
 
 The United States took the first stop in 
 the solution of the Far Eastern problem. 
 In September, 1899, Secretary Hay in- 
 structed the American representatives in 
 England, France, Germany, Russia, Italy 
 and Japan to intimate to those govern- 
 
 196 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 ments the apprehension felt by the United 
 States government of the danger of com- 
 plications arising between the powers that 
 might imperil the rights assured to the 
 United States by treaty. 
 
 In the negotiation thus begun, the Euro- 
 pean governments concerned were warned 
 that the government of the United States 
 would not commit itself to any recognition 
 of exclusive rights of any power within or 
 control over any portion of the Chinese 
 empire under the agreements recently 
 made by which Great Britain, Germany 
 and Russia claimed and conceded to each 
 other the possession of spheres of influence 
 or interest. 
 
 Hoping to retain China as an open mar- 
 ket for the world's commerce, the United 
 States requested the powers claiming 
 spheres of influence in China to declare 
 their intentions with regard to the treat- 
 ment of foreign trade in those spheres and 
 asked from each a declaration to the ef- 
 fect that it would in no wise interfere with 
 
 197 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 any treaty port or vested interest of the 
 United States. 
 
 In other words the United States, con- 
 scious of its new born powers, notified the 
 nations of Europe that they would not be 
 permitted to close the ports of China to 
 the trade and commerce of the United 
 States. As that was just what the nations 
 of Europe had been planning to do the 
 demands of the United States came as an 
 unexpected blow. Again, the logic of the 
 situation was with the United States and 
 the European powers acquiesced. England 
 was the first to make the pledge exacted by 
 the United States ; Germany followed, and 
 then Russia, France, Italy and Japan, in 
 the order named. The United States on 
 March 20, 1900, accepted the pledges of 
 the powers to maintain the open door in 
 China, at the same time announcing that 
 the pledges would be considered irrevo- 
 cable. 
 
 Thus by a single bold stroke of diplo- 
 macy the United States made nugatory all 
 of Europe's carefully planned schemes for 
 
 198 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 the partition of China by a system of 
 spheres of influence. A sphere of influence 
 in which the United States had secured 
 equal rights, not only for herself but for 
 all the world, was of little or no value. 
 
 Vfith her added dignity as a world 
 power for peace the United States has, 
 since the close of the war with Spain, built 
 a navy that is excelled in strength by the 
 navies of only Great Britain and France. 
 The United States fought the war with 
 Spain with only eight battleships and two 
 armored cruisers. Now we have twenty- 
 five of the greatest battleships of the 
 world in commission and building and ten 
 powerful cruisers. Only the two powers 
 referred to have more, and the United 
 States is building ships of the line of battle 
 more rapidly than any other nation. With a 
 great naval base in the Philippines and an- 
 other in the Hawaiian islands, both forti- 
 fied and equipped, the American naxy is 
 in a position to dominate the Pacific. With 
 the Panama canal uniting the waters of the 
 Atlantic and the Pacific, fortified at each 
 
 199 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 end, the naval power of the United States 
 is further enabled to guard American com- 
 merce and to control the greatest ocean 
 highway between the Old World and the 
 Far East. With two naval bases on the 
 island of Cuba and two at Porto Rico the 
 United States dominates the West Indies 
 and the Caribbean Sea. 
 
 No other nation, Great Britain alone ex- 
 cepted, has in its hands so many elements 
 of naval strength. With a powerful navy, 
 strong enough to protect American shores 
 at home and in Asia, and strong enough to 
 protect American rights and American in- 
 terests in any quarter of the globe, is it 
 any wonder that the nations of Europe, 
 whose horizons are clouded by the smoke 
 of battle fleets and whose monarchs are 
 hedged about with bayonets, are quick to 
 recognize the United States as a world 
 power? The nations of Europe recognize 
 one material fact in the universe — force. 
 
 And yet, Europe has come to recognize 
 that the Ignited States is a world power — 
 not for the dismemberment of impassive 
 
 200 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 empires — not for conquest — but for peace^ 
 The idea of a world power for peace is a 
 new one in the text book of old world 
 polities. 
 
 The influence and power of the United 
 States in the maintenance of the world's 
 peace has become a recognized factor in 
 international politics. The credit for this 
 is due largely to Theodore Roosevelt. His 
 messages to congress and his public ad- 
 dresses since he became president, have- 
 made him the recognized advocate of peace 
 among the nations of the earth. He has^. 
 insisted that the United States should sup- 
 ply herself with that power by which alone 
 a nation may enforce its rights and protect 
 its interests. But he has insisted in every 
 public utterance that only by the acquire- 
 ment of such naval power can the United 
 States hope to stand among the nations of 
 the earth fearless and respected. 
 
 In his first message to congress he wrote 
 these words: 
 
 ' ' The work of upbuilding the navy must 
 be steadily continued. No one point of our 
 
 201 
 
THE TKIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 policy, foreign or domestic, is more im- 
 portant than this to the honor and material 
 welfare, and above all to the peace of our 
 nation in the future. Whether we desire 
 it or not, we must henceforth recognize 
 that we have international duties no less 
 than international rights. 
 
 * ' So far from being in any way a provo- 
 cation to war, an adequate and highly 
 trained navy is the best guaranty against 
 war, the cheapest and most effective peace 
 insurance. The cost of building and main- 
 taining such a navy represents the very 
 lightest premium for insuring peace which 
 this nation can possibly pay. 
 
 "Probably no other great nation in the 
 world is so anxious for peace as we are. 
 There is not a single civilized power which 
 has anything to fear from aggressiveness 
 on our part. All we want is peace; and 
 toward this end we wish to be able to secure 
 the same respect for our rights from others 
 which we are eager and anxious to extend 
 to their rights in return, to insure fair 
 
 202 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 treatment to us commercially and to guar- 
 antee the safety of the American people. 
 
 * ' Our people intend to abide by the Mon- 
 roe Doctrine, and to insist upon it as the 
 one sure means of securing the peace of 
 the western hemisphere. The navy offers 
 us the only means of making our insistence 
 upon the Monroe Doctrine anything but a 
 subject of derision to whatever nation 
 chooses to disregard it. 
 
 *'We desire the peace which comes as of 
 right to the just man armed ; not the peace 
 granted on terms of ignominy to the craven 
 and the weakling.'* 
 
 In his message to the Fifty-Seventh Con- 
 gress, President Roosevelt again referred 
 to the United States as a power for peace, 
 saying: 
 
 '*As a people we have played a large 
 part in the world, and we are bent upon 
 making our future even larger than the 
 past. In particular, the events of the last 
 four years have definitely decided, for woe 
 or for weal, that our place must be great 
 among the nations. We may either fail 
 
 203 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 greatly or succeed greatly, but we cannot 
 avoid the endeavor from which either great 
 failure or great success must come. Even 
 if we would, we cannot play a small part. 
 If we should try, all that would follow 
 would be that we should play a large part 
 ignobly and shamefully. 
 
 ''There is not a cloud on the horizon at 
 present. There seems not the slightest 
 chance of trouble with a foreign power. 
 "We most earnestly hope that this state of 
 things may continue; and the way to in- 
 sure its continuance is to provide for a 
 thoroughly efficient navy. The refusal to 
 maintain such a navy wourd invite trouble, 
 and if trouble came would insure disaster. 
 Fatuous self-complacency or vanity, or 
 shortsightedness in refusing to prepare for 
 danger, is both foolish and wicked in such 
 a nation as ours and past experience has 
 shown that such fatuity in refusing to 
 recognize or prepare for any crisis in ad- 
 vance, is usually succeeded by mad panic 
 of hysterical fear, once the crisis has actu- 
 ally arrived." 
 
 204 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 Outside of his messages to Congress, 
 President Roosevelt has in many pubkc ad- 
 dresses urged the rapidly growing power 
 of the United States as a factor in world 
 peace. In an address at a dinner given by 
 the New York Chamber of Commerce on 
 Nov. 11, 1902, he made the following nota- 
 ble utterance: 
 
 '^With the great powers of the world we 
 desire no rivalry that is not honorable to 
 both parties. We wish them well. We be- 
 lieve that the trend of the modern spirit is 
 ever stronger toward peace, not war; to- 
 ward friendship, not hostility, as the nor- 
 mal international attitude. We are glad, 
 indeed, that we are on good terms with all 
 the other peoples of mankind, and no effort 
 on our part shall be spared to secure a 
 continuance of these relations. 
 
 ''And remember, gentlemen, that we 
 shall be a potent factor for peace largely 
 in proportion to the way in which we make 
 it evident that our attitude is due, not to 
 weakness, not to inability to defend our- 
 selves, but to a genuine repugnance to 
 
 305 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 vvronfjdoing, a <:?eninne desire for self- 
 respecting friendship with our neighbor. 
 
 "The voice of the weakling or the 
 craven counts for nothing when he clamors 
 for peace, but the voice of the just man 
 armed is potent. We need to keep in a 
 condition of preparedness, especially as re- 
 gards the navy, not because we want war, 
 but because we desire to stand with those 
 whose plea for peace is listened to with 
 respectful attention.'^ 
 
 With the recognition of the United 
 States as a world power has come also a 
 more general recognition by the great na- 
 tions of Europe of the Monroe Doctrine. 
 Probably no president of the United States 
 has said more in messages to Congress or in 
 public addresses to emphasize the Ameri- 
 can belief in the Doctrine enunciated by 
 Monroe in 1824, than Theodore Roosevelt. 
 He has enabled the nations of Europe to 
 more clearly understand the famous 
 American principle and he has, it may be 
 said, compelled a more thorough recogni- 
 tion of its full force and effect. The story 
 
 206 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 of the Venezuelan affair, given elsewhere 
 in these pages, contains the history of the 
 last attempt that will ever be made by a 
 combination of European governments to 
 test the temper of the American people on 
 the question of the Monroe Doctrine. 
 President Roosevelt's part in the events 
 which threatened for a brief time to plunge 
 a South American state into war with 
 Europe is sufficiently set forth. Those 
 events brought from him one of the most 
 notable public addresses made by him dur- 
 ing his administration. Addressing a great 
 meeting in Chicago, on April 2, 1903, he 
 said in part : 
 
 * ' Ever since the time when we definitely 
 extended our boundaries to the Pacific and 
 southward to the gulf, since the time when 
 the old Spanish and Portuguese colonies to 
 the south of us asserted their independ- 
 ence, our nation has insisted that because 
 of its primacy in strength among the na- 
 tions in the Western Hemisphere it has cer- 
 tain duties and responsibilities which 
 oblige it to take a leading part thereon. 
 
 207 
 
THE TRIUMPHS OF THE 
 
 ''We hold that our interests in this 
 hemisphere are greater than those of any 
 European power possibly can be, and that 
 our duty to ourselves and to the weaker 
 republics who are our neighbors requires 
 us to see that none of the great military 
 powers from across the seas shall encroach 
 upon the territory of the American repub- 
 lics, or acquire control thereover. * * * 
 
 "The Monroe Doctrine is not interna- 
 tional law, and though I think it may one 
 day become such, this is not necessary as 
 long as it remains a cardinal feature of our 
 foreign policy and as long as we possess 
 both the will and the strength to make it 
 effective. 
 
 "This last point, my fellow citizens, is 
 all important, and is one which as a people 
 we can never afford to forget. 
 
 "I believe in the Monroe Doctrine with 
 all my heart and soul ; I am convinced that 
 the immense majority of our fellow-coun- 
 trymen so believe in it; but I would in- 
 finitely prefer to see us abandon it than to 
 see us put it forward and bluster about it, 
 
 206 
 
ROOSEVELT ADMINISTRATION 
 
 and yet fail to build up the efficient fight- 
 ing strength which in the last resort can 
 alone make it respected by any strong for- 
 eign power whose interest it may ever hap- 
 pen to be to violate it. 
 
 "Boasting and blustering are as objec- 
 tionable among nations as among individ- 
 uals, and the public men of a great nation 
 owe it to their sense of national self-respect 
 to speak courteously of foreign powers, 
 just as a brave and self-respecting man 
 treats all around him courteously. But, 
 though to boast is bad, and causelessly to 
 insult another, worse, yet worse than all is 
 it to be guilty of boasting, even without 
 insult, and when called to the proof to be 
 unable to make such boasting good. 
 
 *' There is a homely old adage which 
 rins : ' If you speak softly and carry a big 
 sti-.k you will go far.' If the American 
 na:ion will speak softly and yet build and 
 ke^ at a pitch of the highest training, a 
 tho:'oughly efficient navy, the Monroe Doc- 
 triie will go far." 
 
 309 
 
JUN 23 1904 
 
! 
 
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