Roosevelt, Historian Shattering American Ideals If you would know Theodore Roosevelt, now President of the United States, for what he really is, read what he has written about the great men of this nation since the birth of the Republic. ^ Mr. Roosevelt has written his own character into his works. His writings are not such as a professional author, struggling for a livelihood, might produce to meet a de¬ mand of the market. ] He has criticised and denounced the fathers of the Republic in a way to disclose his lack of re¬ spect for their work. He would tear down this work, sub¬ stituting strenuosity for wisdom, militarism for industrial progress, and put the caprice of the Chief Magistrate in the place of a government by the people. Few who have woven their wisdom into the fabric of our institutions or who have taught lessons of valor and patriotism escape his attack. His writings but thinly veil what appears to be a sinister purpose to disparage American policies of the past. He has been impelled to authorship by the sentiments to which he gives expression and a review of what he has written in the character of historian discloses an inspira¬ tion of protest from his soul against the fame which the great Americans before him have won in peace and in war. He seems to have sought less to win literary fame than to to tear down the reputations of men whom the world has loved to honor, and to set up a-standard of greatness en- 2 Roosevelt , Historian tirely his own. If his measures of men be accurate, all the recorders of history have been in error, and this nation must revise its judgment of those whose names have been written on the tablet of fame, and the people may no longer take pride in the nobility and patriotism of the men who conceived this government, defending republican institutions, or who, from generation to generation, have contributed brilliant pages to our history. Whether his condemnation of the great figures of American history is due to a sense on his part of their difference from the standard of meas¬ urement which he takes from his own shadow/ as it varies in magnitude with the varying angles of the hour, or whether it is our institutions themselves which excite his resentment may be left to the judgment of the readers of Mr. Roosevelt's works. That he holds the creations of American statesmen in contempt is indicated by the eager¬ ness with which he seeks to tear down the more substantial structure that it may be replaced by tawdry Rooseveltiau renaissance from the mediaeval war lords. Whether he be envious of all greatness, antagonistic to the institutions whose milestones he would deface or merely recklessly ex¬ travagant in his judgment as in his expressions his writings should be read by those who would form a just estimate of the man whom they are asked to again entrust with the power of the executive, which during the short time he has held sway in the White House he has magnified and extended beyond proper sphere. Questions that may be asked are: Is a man who condemns his predecessors to be trusted to respect the traditions of the office which they have filled? May he who condemns the creators be trusted to protect and preserve the things of their creation? Is a man who is wantonly extravagant and reckless in his acts and expressions to be depended upon for a policy of safety and sanity? Mr. Roosevelt’s “Naval War of 1812" and his “Oliver vromweir appear to have been written for the purpose of 'Shattering T A meric an Ideals 4 hawing that the militia .is utterly worthless and that a •ast navy is a necessity. )t His version of the war of 1812 5 that the American militiamen were cowards commanded Jiy incompetent and untrained officers and that they were * eaten ill every considerable clash of arms with the British Regulars and Indians. He credits the British with vie- jories at Bladensburg, Lundy’s Lane. Niagara, at North .Pqint and in almost every engagement in the war. Lossingv Rfdpath, Harper’s, Strait, and all other American histories a Lssert that the Americans were victorious in these engage- r nents, and their statements of fact conflict with Air. Roose- a felt in almost every material poiny [The navy, according to President Roosevelt, was quite r : is worthless as the militia in the war of 1812J He de¬ clares Commodore Perry does not deserve the credit ac¬ corded him for the famous fight which drove England from t he Great Lakes, and that Commodore Decatur was greatly C werestimated and was not entitled to the hoonrs bestowed 1 ipon him by the people and the Congress. John Paul Jones, t he hero of the war, is referred to as a pirate and General ] dull is labeled a coward. General Van Rensselaer is char- ? jicterized as “an amiable old gentleman, without military training” although at the time he was but thirty-eight years c If age, had been in the military service for fifteen years and h ad been four times wounded in battles, fin short, every r eference to the American soldiers and sailors in the war of 1812 is an apparent effort to show that they were unfit, f jor service, if not absolutely cowardly in face of the enemy.| 1 Mr, Roosevelt has, in other of his books, notably “Amer- f can Ideals,” “Life of Gouverneur Morris” and “Life of I Benton/* dealt summarily with all of the early Presidents alnd statesmen of the country and found them all wanting- I|Ie criticises Washington for his appointment of Jay as 1Minister to England and Monroe as minister to France aying that it “was rank injustice” to the countries mem ionecl to send such representatives. He declares that Wash- 4 Roosevelt, Historian irigton can not be compared as a military general with Le and that Washington's administration was in error in not dealing vigorously with important questions. Mr. Roosevelt's contempt for President Jefferson is ex¬ pressed in the strongest possible language. Jefferson, he says, was “the mast incapable executive that ever filled the executive chair.” jpHe declares that the war of 1812 “was at¬ tended by incidents of shame and disgrace to America, for which Jefferson and Madison and their political friends and supporters among the'politicians and the people have never received a sufficiently severe condemnation.| He accuses Jefferson of being “engaged in tortuous intrigues against Washington and was thwarting his wishes, -so far as he dared.” He says that “Washington grew to distrust Madison as he long before had distrusted Jefferson and had come into constantly closer re¬ lations with their enemies.” The President also insists that Jefferson does not deserve any credit for the! Louisiana Purchase and, it may be recalled, in his address at St. Louis, dedication the Louisiana Purchase Exposi-j tion grounds, in May, 1903, he refrained from referring to Jefferson in any complimentary way. He declares that Gouverneur Morris “despised Jefferson as a tricky and in¬ capable theorist” and as “a man who believed in the wis¬ dom of mobs and moderation of the Jacobins and vvhoj found himself in the wretched plight of being forced to turn out good officers to make room for the unworthy.” He insists that Jefferson's influence was “on the whole, dis¬ tinctly evil,” and that he was “the father of nullification and therefore of secession.” Altogether. Mr. Roosevelt has given us a Jefferson of whom none of the other Amer¬ ican historians apparently had any knowledge or informa¬ tion. i Americans who gathered from their reading of history that James Madison was a capable President and remem¬ ber of his success in waging the second war with England, Shattering 'American Ideals o will learn from Mr. Roosevelt's life of G. Morris .that “ex¬ cepting Jefferson, we have never produced an executive more helpless than Madison” and that “he was a ridicu¬ lously incompetnet leader for a war with Great Britain.” Mr. Roosevelt says that the war was forced by the “fiery young Democrats of the South and West, who were, for all their bluster, but one shade less incompetent than their nominal chief.” | Mr. Roosevelt's “Naval War of 1812" says: “1 think lie (James Monroe) was as much a failure as his predecessors and a harsher criticism could not be passed upon him." Again we are told by Mr. Roosevelt that Monroe “was well fitted to act as a President figurehead,” and that lie was “a very amiable gentleman but distinctly one who comes in the category of those whose greatness is thrust upon them.’| In his “Life of Benton,” Mr. Roosevelt tells us that “the public service then (in Jackson's administration) took its first and greatest step in that downward career of progress¬ ive debasement and deterioration which has only been checked in our own days.” We also learn that Jackson was a man of “strong, narrow mind and bitter prejudice with few statesmanlike qualities, who, for brilliant military services, was raised to the highest civil positon.” Jackson is severely criticised by Mr. Roosevelt for his appointments, particularly of Justice Taney and other members of his Cabinet. Mr. Roosevelt, speaking of President Polk, declares that “the abolitionists joined hands with the toughs of the North and the slavocrats of the South to elect the man who was, excepting Tyler, the very smallest of the line of small Presidents' who'came between Jackson and Lincoln.” So it seems that the country began poorly with Washington, Madison and Jefferson and kept getting worse, in the selec¬ tion of Chief Executives. Mr. Roosevelt declares that “Van Buren was the first 6 R'oosevelt, Historian . product of what is now called machine politics that was put into the Presidential chair." and that. “Van Buren faithfully served the. mammon of unrighteousness both in his own State and at Washington, and he had his reward for lie was advanced to the highest office in the gift of the nation, f In his “Life of Benton,Mr. Roosevelt refers to Presi¬ dent Tyler as a “politician of monumental littleness," whose “chief moral:and .mental attributes were peevishness, fret¬ ful obstinacy, inconsistency: incapacity to make up his own mind, and the ability to'quibble indefinitely over the most microscopic and •hair-splitting play upon words, together with an inordinate vanity that so blinded him.to all out¬ side feeling as to make him think lie stood a chance to be renominated for the Presidency.” \While the country, according to Historian Roosevelt., was particularly unfortunate, in the selection of weaklings for Presidents, in the early day, it was not less so in the character of the lesser statesmen who played an im¬ portant part in shaping the nation’s destinies^ We are in¬ formed that Samuel Adams was in cabal against Washing¬ ton and that, while lie'and John Hancock “did admirable service in exciting the Americans to make the struggle (for independence), once it was begun their function ended and from thence onward they hampered as much as they helped the patriot, cause.” We arc informed that Senator Timothy Pickering “showed eager desire to stand by an¬ other country to the .hurt of his own country’s honor.” We are told that the' name of Oliver Ellsworth - . Chief Justice of the Supreme Court “should be branded with infamy be¬ cause of the words lie uttered,” and that General Winfield Scott was “a wholly absurd and flatulent personage.” Mr. Roosevelt assures us in one chapter that the financial theories of Thomas Benton were “crude and vicious" and in another chapter that Benton’s financial theories “were right and those of his opponents were wrong.” lie de- Shattering American Ideals 7 dares that Clay was susceptible to “'the charge of loose living,” and says that the blame that attaches to Qlpy and C alhoun ‘'relates to th eir utter inabi lity and the extraor dh ( nary weakness and indecisi omp Lall the ir policies, and on. j all these points it is ,.hardly possibledo-visltthem with too f unsparin g censure/’ ^These are but instances of Mr. Roose- j velt’s criticisms of statesmen and party leaders in the earlier days of the Republic. Few of them escaped his rebuke either for their policies or their methods in prosecuting them.^ r In his ‘‘American Ideals/’ Author Roosevelt thanks the ^ i people of the South for the policy “which has kept the tern- - perate zones of the new and the newest world as a heritage z i for the white people.” President Roosevelt has insisted upon negro representation in the offices in the South and has made it an issue which he forced through an obdurate Senate in some instances, while in others it is a still un¬ decided question. /As an author, Mr. Roosevelt refers to the negro as “a perfectly stupid race,” while as a President and a candidate for nomination to that office he has in¬ sisted upon a negro seconding his nomination in the con¬ vention and has demanded that the “door of hope” to per¬ fect equality with the white man be kept open to the negro,| As an author, Mr. Roosevelt declares that the right to vote h, was not necessarily given to the black man, while as Fresi- r dent he has insisted upon the right of suffrage being ex- c tended to the negroes, even to the point of assuring, by f \ such privilege, negro domination in many districts in the \ South. I In his “Life of Benton,” Mr. Roosevelt declares that the I \ protective tariff policy is “vicious in theory and harmful in a i practice.” As President, in 1902, he promised, at Logans- I i port, Indiana, the appointment of a tariff commission to r study methods for revising the schedules, jf" In 1904 he de¬ clares for the “standpat” policy, insisting that the principle of the protective tariff policy is right and that no change 8 Roasevdt, Historian in the schedules shall be made except by the Republicans pledged to the maintenance of the system which he once denounced. ^In 1902 President Roosevelt declared in favor of reciprocity in competive products. In 1904 he opposes reciprocity that will affect “any” American industry. The' change can only be accounted for on the theory that he has yielded to the wishes of the men who are in control of the machinery of his party and the chief beneficiaries of the tariff systemi As President. Air. Roosevelt has given expression to many highly complimentary words for the American farmer and the American workingman; yet in his “Ameri¬ can Ideals” he tells of the folly of Eastern men who l. But Lieber’s name would not inspire applause so Lincoln’s was used. General Orders No. TOO. War Department, Adjutant-General s Office, Washington, April 24, 1863. The following instruction for the government of the armies of the United States in the field prepared by Francis Lieber, LL. D., and revised by a Board of Officers of which Major-General E. A. Hitchcock is president, having been approved by the President of the United States, lie com¬ mands that they be published for information of all con¬ cerned. E. D. Townsend, Ass’t Adjutant-General, U. S. A. Attention is also called to the fact that later on in his same address, Mr. Roosevelt speaks of resolutions passed by the 46 Roosevelt, Historian Confederate Congress in October, 1862. accusing the Union forces of disregard of the usages of war. He implies a con¬ nection between this accusation and Lieber’s code, but fails to call attention that the German, Lieber, did not have his Rules of War sanctioned until April 24, 1863, about six months after the Confederate protest. Militiamen Denounced as Useless. ‘There is hardly another contest of modern times where the defeated side suffered such frightful carnage while, the victors came off almost scathless. It is quite in accordance with the rest of the war that the militia, hitherto worse than useless, should on this occasion win in great odds in point of numbers. On the whole, the contest by land, where we cer¬ tainly ought to have been successful, reflected greater credit on our antagonists than upon us, in spite of the services of Scott, Brown and Jackson. Our small force of regulars and volunteers did excellently; as for the militia, New Orleans proved that they could fight superbly, and the other battles that they generally would not fight at all.’’—Roosevelt's “Naval War of 1812,” page 10. The instance Mr. Roosevelt himself cites, the battle of New Orleans, wholly defeats the statement often repeated by him in his naval history that the militia was worse than useless. It was not alone at New Orleans that our militia distinguished itself. At Bellair, or Moor’s Fields, Mary¬ land, on August 27, 1814, Maryland militia defeated a con¬ siderably greater, force of British marines under Sir Peter Parker. At Craney Island, 450 Virginia militia and 150 sailors defeated 2,500 trained British soldiers. . At Lyon’s Creek 1,200 British, under the Marquis of Tweedale, were compelled to retreat by 1,000 militiamen. At North Point, Maryland, 5,000 British under General Ross were success¬ fully checked by 2,300 militia under General Stryker. An attack upon American militia in the war of 1812 is virtually Shattering % rncriean - Ideals 47 an attack on the American Army for our forces were almost solely composed of militia and volunteers. The figures given here are from official sources, compiled by Dr. W. A. Strait and published by the sanction of the War and Interior De¬ partments. -— lrln accordance with their curiously foolish theories, the Democrats persisted on relying on that weakest of all weak reeds, the militia, who promptly ran away every time they: faced the foe in the open. This applied to all, whether East¬ ern, Western or Southern; the men of the Eastern States in 1812-1813 did as badly as, and no worse than, the Virgin¬ ians in 1814. Indeed, one of the good results of the war was that it did away forever with all reliance on the old time militia, the most expensive and inefficient species of soldiers that could be invented.’'-—Roosevelt’s “Life of G. Morris,” page 349. J f • ‘A British invasion was repulsed far more disgracefully. >ir George Prevost, with an army of 13,000 veteran troops, marched South along the shores of Lake Champlain to Plattsburg, which was held by General Macomb with 2,000 regulars and perhaps double that number of nearly worthless militia; a force that the British could have scattered to the winds, though as they were strongly posted, not without severe loss. But the British fleet was captured by Commo- % * t> dore Macdonough in the fight on me Lakes; and then Sir George, after some heavy skirmishing between the outposts of the armies in which the Americans had the advantage, fled precipitately back to Canada.”—Roosevelt’s “Naval War of 1812,” Preface, page 23. f y iV “The British under General Prevost were defeated by the Americans under General Macomb at Plattsburg, New York, September n, 1814.”—Dr. W. A. Strait’s “Battles of the War of 1812,” from official sources. Lossing in his history gives Prevost’s forces as 14,000 and the British loss as 2,000, while the American loss was less than two hun* 48 Roosevelt, Historian dred, and he adds: “The whole .country rang with the praises of Macfomb and Macdonough. Mr. Roosevelt as a Militiaman. ' At the very time he was writing his “Naval War of 1812.“ and straining facts to suit his theory that militia was worse than useless in times of war, Mr. Roosevelt was a Lieutenant in the 8th New York National Guards and remained a mili¬ tiaman for more than four years./ This, indeed, was liis only military training prior to the war with Spain. It seems, too, that the President has changed; his mind about the militia, although he has solemnly recorded himself in history as'condemning t hem. In an address at Sea Girt, N. L , on July 24, 1902, at the encampment of the Second Brigade, New Jersey National Guards, President Roosevelt said: “I think that our people have not always appreciated the debt they were under to the National Guard. IA man who goes into the guard and does his duty fairly and squarely puts the whole country under an obligation to him. J Always in our history it has been the case, as it will be in the future, that if war should arise it is to be met mainly by the citizen- soldier—the volunteer soldier. We have in the regular army, officered as it is and filled with the type of enlisted men we had in it, an a^my which, I firmly believe, for its size is unequaled in the civilized world, and I am sure that I can challenge the most generous support from the National Guard for the regular army of the United States. But that army is, and of necessity must be, so small that in the event of serious trouble in the future the great bulk of our troops must come, as in the past, from the ranks of the people them¬ selves. In forming those regiments the good done by the presence in them of men who have served faithfully in the National Guard cannot be overestimated. Those men are ready. They know what is expected of them. They train others to do the work that is needed. And another thing, the same qualities that make a man a success — that make him Shattering American Ideals 49 do his duty decently and honestly in a national guard regi¬ ment—are fundamentlly the qualities that he needs to make him a good citizen in private life.” An this is, of course, very complimentary to the militia and while it is also undoubtedly true, it does not alter the fact that the man who uttered the compliment is recorded in a written history as writing the militia down as worse than useless. Mr. Roosevelt may be able to reconcile his state¬ ments as a historian with his statements as a politician. The task is too difficult for the unprejudiced student of history and politics./ —-- “Under modern conditions in a great civilized state the regular army is composed of officers who have, as a rule, been carefully trained to their work. * * * So it is with the men in high command. The careful training in body and mind and especially in character, gained in an academy like West Point, and the subsequent experience in the field, endows a regular officer with such advantages, that in any but a long war, he cannot be overtaken even by the best natural fighter. In the American Civil War, for instance, the greatest leaders were all West Pointers.”—Roosevelt's “Life of Cromwell." page 65. “Leonard Wood four years ago went to Cuba, has served there ever since, has rendered services to that country of the kind which if performed three thousand years ago, would have made him a hero mixed up with the Sun God in various ways,."—Theodore Roosevelt, University Commencement at Harvard, June 5, 1903. Roosevelt's Treatment of General Miles. “All honor to the volunteer, but let us now. in time of peace remember our debt to -the men of the regular army. \\ e have spoken of what General Miles did in the Civil War when General Grant faced Lee. Now. thank Heaven, we can be glad and proud of the valor of the men who followed Grant and the men who followed Lee. Remember for thirtv- 5 ° RoosevHi'stoH&n three years since that time the soldiers of the regular army have uncomplainingly, without expectation of praise or notice faced discomfort, danger and death wajring against the Indians on oiir frontier and reclaiming a new country from the waste. In General Miles' the hero of the civil war, do not forget General Miles, the hero of the long weary campaigns against the Sioux, the Cheyennes and the Black- feet. And do not forget the men with him who had to. face Arctic cold a heat worse than tropics, hunger and thirst and the crudest of foes and all this without hope of reward other than the knowledge that they were serving the nation and •upholding the flag. That's the regular army; that’s the sort of thing they have been doing all these years. I wish that you could realize the bravery, devotion, and endurance of pain and peril of the American regular officer and of the American regular soldier.”—-From Mr. Roosevelt’s speech at a banquet in New York City in 1898, as quoted by W. M. Clemens in “Roosevelt, the American.” General Miles was personally rebuked by President Roosevelt on account of his telling the truth about condi¬ tions in the Philippines, in a report of inspection, and was in such disfavor with the administration that he was treated with the utmost discourtesy. On his retirement the custom of reviewing the record of services was departed from in his case and he was-relieved from active service in the following curt order: “August 8 , 190^. “By direction of the Secretary of War, the retirement from active service by the President, August 8, 1903, of Lieut.-General Nelson A. Miles, United States Army, by operation of the law, under provisions of the act of Con¬ gress, approved June 30, 1903, is announced. Lieutenant- General Miles will proceed to his home. The travel en¬ joined is necessary for the public service. “By order of the Secretary of War, (Signed) “H. C. Corbin, “Adjutant-General.” Shattering American Ideals- 51 • Cowboys Better Than Farmers or Mechanics. “When drunk on villainous whiskey of the frontier towns they (the cowboys) cut mad antics, riding their horses into the saloons, firing their pistols right and left, from boister¬ ous light-heartedness rather than from any viciousness, and indulging too often in deadly shooting affrays, brought on either by the incidental contact of the moment or bv some long-standing grudge, or perhaps because of bad blood be¬ tween two ranches or localities; but except while on sprees, they are quiet, rather self-contained men, perfectly frank and simple and on their own ground treat a stranger with most wholesome hospitality, doing all in their power for him and scorning to take any reward in return. Although prompt to resent an injury, they are not at all apt to be rude to outsid¬ ers, treating them with what almost can be called grave courtesy. They are much better fellows and pleasanter com¬ panions than small farmers or agriculture laborers; nor are mechanics and workmen of a great city to be mentioned in the same breath.”—Roosevelt’s “Ranch Life and Hunting Trail,” page 10. - Quakers Hypocritical. Selfish and Cruel. “It is a bitter and unanswerable commentary on the work¬ ings of a non-resistant creed that such outrages and mass¬ acres as those committed on the helpless Indians were more numerous in the colony the Quakers governed than in any other; their.vaunted policy of peace * * * caused the utmost possible evil * * * their system was a direct incentive to crime and wrong doing. Xo other colony made such futile, contemptible efforts to deal with the Indians; no other colony showed such supine, selfish helplessness.”—• Roosevelt’s “Winning of the West," Vol. I, page 98. Quakers Righteous, Peaceful and Virtuous. “I understand that this community is composed largely of members of the Society of Friends, who stand for social and 52 Roosevelt] Histo'ridri industrial virtue in a way that entitles them to the respect of all people. That the virtues and righteousness which they practice are the foundation of good government cannot be denied and without them we would have never been able to make the Republic what it is and what it must be. * * ’ * It is impossible yet, for we have not advanced far enough to settle all difficulties peaceably by arbitration; but in every case we should avoid appeals to arms where possible, for we as a party are pledged to peaceful settlement until war be¬ comes a last resort.”—From an address by Mr. Roosevelt at Plainfield, N. J., 1900. Original Pennsylvania^ Were a Bail Lot. “Pennsylvania politics were already low. The leaders who had taken control were men of mean capacity and small morality, and the State was not only becoming Democratic, but was also drifting along in a disorganized, pseudo-Jaco- binical, half insurrectionary kind of a way that would have boded evil for its future if it had not been fettered by the presence of healthier communities about it.”—Roosevelt's “Life of G. Morris,” page 324. Scotch and Irish Natural Savages. “Scotland and Ireland, when independent, were nests of savages.”—Roosevelt’s “Life of G. Morris,” page 132. Folly to Loan Money in Kansas and Far Western States. “As for the debtors being powerless, if Mr. Adams knows any persons who have lent money in Kansas or similar States they will speedily enlighten him on this subject, and will give him an exact idea of the extent to which the debtor is servant of the creditor. In these States the creditor—and especially the Eastern money-lender, or ‘gold bug'—is the man who has lost all his money. Mr. Adams can easily find this out by the simple endeavor to persuade some ‘money Shattering A merican . Ideals 53 lender’ or other ‘Wall street shark’ to go into the business of lending money on Far-Western farm property.”—Roose¬ velt’s “American Ideals.” page 348. There were many foreclosures of mortagages in Kansas and some of the Western States, following the panic of 1893, but Mr. Roosevelt should know that no section of the country has so nobly met its obligations. The debts have been paid, dollar for dollar, and in many cases at usurious rates of interest, and there has never been any thought of repudiation of just obligations. Every trust company in the country is bidding for mortgages on these Kansas and West¬ ern farms, which go down into one of Mr. Roosevelt’s famous histories as the burial grounds of Eastern capital. Kansas banks had more than $100,000,000 on deposit on September 1, 1904. 54 Roosevelt ; Historian Contradictory Views on the Tariff. *‘In 1828,, the tariff, whether it benefited the country as a whole or not, unquestionably harmed the South; and in a Federal Union it is most unwise to pass laws which shall benefit one part of the country to the hurt of another part, when the latter receives no compensation. The truculent and unyielding attitude of the extreme protectionists was ir¬ ritating in the extreme: for cooler men than the South Car¬ olinians might well have been exasperated at such an utter¬ ance as that of Henry Clay, when he stated for the sake of the American system—by which title he was fond of styling a doctrine already ancient in medieval times—he would 'defy the South, the President and the devil/ ”—Roosevelt's “Life of Benton/' page 90. “The nullification movement in South Carolina was immediately caused by the tariff.”—The same, page 88. “Clay’s assertions as to what the tariff had done for the West were ill-founded, as Benton showed in a good speech, wherein he described picturesquely enough the industries and general condition of the country, and asserted with truth that its revived prosperity was due to its own resources, en¬ tirely independent of Federal aid or legislation. He said: T do not think we are indebted to the high tariff for our fertile lands and our navigable rivers; and I am certain we are indebted to these blessings for the prosperity we enjoy/ ” —Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton,'’ page 91. “Political economists have pretty generally agreed that protection is vicious in theory and harmful in practice; but if the majority of the people in interest wish it, and it affects only themselves, there is no earthly reason why they should not be allowed to try the experiment to their hearts’ content. The trouble is that it rarely does affect only themselves; and in 1828 the evil was peculiarly aggravated on account of the unequal way in which the proposed law would affect differ¬ ent sections. It purported to benefit the rest of the country, ’Shattering American Ideals 55 but it undoubtedly worked real injury to the planter States and there is small ground for wonder that' the irritation over it should have been intense.”—Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton,” page 67. “There is general acquiescence in our present tariff sys¬ tem as a national policy. The first requisite to our pros¬ perity 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, uncertainty are exactly what we most wish to avoid in the interest of our commercial and material well-being."—'President Roosevelt's message to Fifty-seventh Congress. “That whenever the need arises there should be a re¬ adjustment of the tariff schedules is undoubted: but such changes can with safety be made only by those whose devo¬ tion to the principle of a protective tariff is beyond question; for otherwise the changes would amount not to readjust¬ ment but to repeal. The readjustment when made must maintain and not destroy the protective principle.”—Presi¬ dent Roosevelt's speech of acceptance, July 27, 1904. * Change of Views on Reciprocity. In his speech accepting the Republican convention’s nomi¬ nation for the Presidency of the United States, at Oyster Bay on July 27. 1904, President Roosevelt declared his posi¬ tion on reciprocity to be as follows: “We believe in reciprocity with foreign nations on the terms outlined in President McKinley’s last speech, which urged the extension of our foreign markets by reciprocal agreements whenever they could be made without injury to American industry and labor.” This utterance is significant, as showing the changed at¬ titude of the President, probably for the purpose of getting into more complete accord the beneficiaries of the high pro¬ tective tariff policy, when contrasted with discussion of 56 "Roosevelt, Historian reciprocity in his second annual message to Congress, on December 2, 1902. In that message, President Roosevelt said: “One way in which the readjustment sought [readjust¬ ment of the tariff to new conditions and national needs] can be reached is by reciprocity treaties. It is greatly to be de¬ sired that such treaties may be adopted. They can be used to widen our markets and to give greater field for the activ¬ ities of our producers on the one hand, and on the other hand to secure in practical shape the lowering of duties when they are no longer needed for protection among our own people, or when the minimum of damage done may he disregarded for the sake of the maximum of good accom¬ plished.” In view of such utterances it would seem necessary for the President to explain w r hat he means by his oft-repeated as¬ sertion that he is pursuing the tariff and reciprocity policies of President McKinley, whose last public address, at Buf¬ falo, w r as a plea for the broader reciprocity, an increase of the benefits to a greater number even at the expense of slight loss or injury to the few. President Roosevelt stated in December, 1902, a reciprocity policy that was in accord with that of Major McKinley. In July, 1904, he declares for the empty, meaningless reciprocity plan exploited by the bene¬ ficiaries of the tariff nurtured trusts. ‘‘Big Stick” Policy Proclaimed. “This doctrine (The Monroe Doctrine) has-nothing to do with the commercial relations of any American power, save that in truth it allovrs each of them to form such as it desires. In other words, it is really a guaranty of the commercial independence of the Americas. We do not ask under this doctrine for any exclusive commercial dealings with any other American state. We do not guarantee any state against punishment if it misconducts itself, provided that punishment doss not take the form of the acquisition of ter- Shattering American Ideals 57 ritory by any non-American power.”—President Roosevelt’s message to the first session of the Fifty-seventh Congress, December 3. 1901. “All that we desire is to see all neighboring countries (Cuba and South American Countries) stable, orderly and prosperous. If a nation shows that it knows how to act with decency in industrial and political matters, if it keeps order and pays its obligations, then it need fear no interference from the United States. Brutal wrong-doing, or an impo¬ tence wjiich results in a general loosening of the ties of civilized society, may finally require intervention by some civilized nation, and in the Western Hemisphere the United States cannot ignore its duty; but it remains true that our interests and those of our southern neighbors are in reality identical. All that we ask is that they shall govern them¬ selves well and be prosperous and orderly. Where this is the case they will receive only helpfulness from us.”—From President Roosevelt’s letter to banquet in honor of second anniversary of Cuban Independence, held at the Waldorf- Astoria Hotel, New York, May 20, 1904. Roosevelt on Pernicious Pension Legislation. “Benton’s speech (against French spoliation claims) would not be bad reading for some of the pension-grabbing Congressmen of the present day and their supporters ; but as concerns these French claims he could have been easily answered. In regard to the pension matter. Benton showed that he would not let himself, by any specious plea of ex¬ ceptional suffering or need for charity, be led into vicious special legislation, sure in the end to bring about the break¬ ing down of some of the most important principles of gov¬ ernment.’^—Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton,” pages 149-J58. Mr. Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton” was written in 1887, when he was not in a position in which special pension legis¬ lation could be used as a political agency. In the present year of 190.4 he has by executive order created pension legis- 58 Roosevelt, Historian ' Iation that means an annual additional outlay of at least $50,000,000 for veterans of the civil war who have reached the age of 70 years, regardless of their financial or physical condition. He has not even consulted the Congress in the matter, hut has taken the law into his own hands. No ad¬ ministration since the Civil War has been marked by such reckless extravagance in pension matters and by the resort to special legislation, such as he commended Mr. Benton for denouncing. There is no record that he has hesitated to sign any pension legislation submitted to him by the subtle caterers to continued political power. Conflicting Views on Colonial Policies. “I have scantier patience with those who make a pretense of humanitarianism to hide and cover their timidity, and who cant about ‘liberty’ and the ‘consent of the governed’ in order to excuse themselves for their unwillingness to play the part of men. * * * Their doctrines condemn your forefathers and mine for ever having settled in these United States. England’s rule in India and Egypt has been of great benefit to England, for it has trained up generations of men accustomed to look at the larger and loftier side of public life. It has been of greater benefit to India and Egypt and finally, and most of all, it has advanced the cause of civiliza¬ tion. So if we do our duty aright in the Philippines, we will add to that national renown which is the highest and finest part of national life, will greatly benefit the people of the Philippine Islands, and above all, we will play our part well in the great work of uplifting mankind. But to dp this work, keep ever in mind that we must show in a very high degree the qualities of courage, of honesty and of good judgment. Resistance must be stamped out. The first and all-important work to be done is to establish the supremacy of the flag. We must put down armed resistance before we can accomplish anything else and there must be no parleying and no faltering in dealing with our foe. As for those in Shattering American Ideals 59 our own country who encourage the foe, we can afford con¬ temptuously to disregard them; but it must be remembered that their utterances are not saved from being treasonable merely by the fact that they are despicable/’—Roosevelt’s '■Strenuous Life,” pages. 18 and 19. “It is the great expand¬ ing peoples which bequeath to future ages the great mem¬ ories and material results of their achievements, and the nations which shall have sprung from their loins, England standing as the archetype and best exemplar of all such mighty nations.”—The same, page 37. “This country (the United States) will keep the islands and will establish a stable and orderly government, so that one more fair spot of the World’s surface shall have been snatched from the forces of darkness.”—The same, page 35. “The English rule in India, while it may last: for decades or even centuries, must eventually come to an end and leave little trace of its existence.”—-Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton,” page 261. “Of course, no one would wish to see these or any other settled communities now added to our domain by force. We want no unwilling citizens to enter our Union; the time to have taken the lands was before the settlers came into them. European nations war for the possession of thickly settled districts, which, if conquered, will for centuries remain alien and hostile to the conquerors: we wiser in our generation have siezed the waste solitudes that lay near us.”—Roose¬ velt’s “Life of Benton.” pages 266 and 267. “The population of the Philippines includes half-caste and native Christians, warlike Moslems and wild pagans. Many of their people are utterly unfit for self-government and show no sign of becoming fit. * * * We must put down armed resistance before we can accomplish anything else and there should be no faltering, no parleying in dealing with our foe.”—Roosevelt’s “Strenuous Life,” page 19. “The colonial habit of thought dies hard. It is to be wished that those who are cursed with it would, in endeavor- Roosevelt, Historian i$o mg to emulate the ways of the old world, endeavor-to emu¬ late one characteristic which has been 'shared by every old world nation, and which is possessed to a marked degree by England. * * * Let our own people of the partially col¬ onial type copy this peculiarity and it will be much to their own credit.’’—Roosevelt in an article on the ‘‘Monroe Doc¬ trine,” published in the Bachelor of Arts Magazine, March, 1896. “Just at this moment the army of the United States, led by men who served among you in the great war is carrying to completion a small but peculiarly trying and difficult war in which is involved not only the honor of the flag, but the triumph of civilization over forces which stand for the black chaos of savagery and barbarism. The task has not been as important as yours, but the men in the uniform of the United States who have for the last three years championed the American cause in the Philippine Islands are your younger brothers, your sons. They have shown themselves not un¬ worthy of you, and they are entitled to the support of all men who are proud of what you did. * * * The Pacific seaboard is as much to us as the Atlantic; as 'we grow in power and property so our interests will grow in that farthest West which is the immemorial East. The shadow of our destiny has already reached the shores of Asia. The might of our people looms large against the world horizon and it will loom ever larger as the years go by.”—Extracts from President Roosevelt’s Memorial Day Address at Arlington, 1902. “Benton's views and habits of thought became more markedly Western and ultra-American than ever, especially in regard to our encroachment on the territory of neighbor¬ ing powers. The general feeling in the West upon this last subject afterwards crystallized into what became known as the ‘Manifest Destiny’ idea, which, reduced to its simplest terms, was: that it was our manifest destiny to swallow up the lands of all adjoining nations who were too weak to Shattering American Ideals 6t withstand us; a theory that forthwith obtained immense popularity among all statesmen of easy international moral¬ ity.”—Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton,” page 40. Colonization Not a Success in the Tropics, “Under the best circumstances, therefore, a colony is in a false position. But if the colony is in a region where the colonizing race has to do its work by means of other in¬ ferior races the condition is much worse. From the stand¬ point of the race little or nothing lias been gained by die English conquest of colonization of Jamaica. Jamaica lias merely been turned into a negro island with a future, seem¬ ingly, much like that of San Domingo. British Guiana, however, well administered, is nothing but a colony where a few hundred or a few thousand white men hold the supe¬ rior places, while the bulk of the population is composed of Indians.”—Roosevelt on Monroe Doctrine, page 231. “In America, most of the West Indies are becoming negro islands. * * * It is impossible for the dominant races of the temperate zones to ever bodily displace the people of the tropics. It is highly probable that these people will cast off the yoke of their European conquerors sooner or later.”— Roosevelt's “American Ideals,” page 283. South Thanked for Preserving White Supremacy. “The presence of the negro in our Southern States is a legacy from the time when we were ruled by a trans-oceanic aristocracy. The whole civilization of the future owes a debt of gratitude greater than can be expressed in words to that democratic policy which has kept the temperate zones of the new and the newest world as a heritage for the white people.”—Roosevelt’s “American Ideals,” page 289. “At the time of my last visit to Charleston I had made and since that time have made a number of such appointments from several States in which there was a considerable colored population.” * * * “The question of negro domination 62 Roosevelt , Historian ' does not enter into the matter at all.”—Extract from letter of President Roosevelt dated November 26, 1902, and pub¬ lished in the press November 28, 1902. Negro Race Stupidity. “A perfectly stupid race can never rise to a very' high plane : the negro,, for instance, has been kept down as much by lack of intellectual development as by anything else; but the prime factor in the preservation of a race is its power to attain a high degree of social efficiency.”—Roosevelt’s “Social Evolution/” page 327, American Ideals. Mulattoes and Mixed Breeds Do Not Prosper. “Mr. Pearson shows clearly that the men of bur stock do not prosper in tropical countries. * * * In Asia they may leave a few tens of thousands or possibly hundreds of thousands of Eurasians to form an additional caste in a ♦ caste-ridden community. In tropical Africa they may leave here and there a mulatto tribe in the Griquas. But it cer¬ tainly has not yet been proved that the European can live and propagate permanently in the hot regions of India and Africa, and Mr. Pearson is right in anticipating for the whites who have conquered these tropical and sub-tropical regions of the Old World, the same fate which befell the Greek Kingdoms in Bactria and Chersonese.”—Roosevelt's “American Ideals,” page 282. Negroes Criminal and Vicious. “It is beyond doubt a misfortune that in certain districts the bulk of the population should be composed of densely ignorant negroes, often criminal and vicious in their in¬ stincts; but such is the case."—Roosevelt's “Life of Benton," page 161. * * * “Slavery was chiefly responsible for the streak of coarse and brutal barbarism which ran through the Southern character."—The same, page 161. Sbattering A mcncan Ideals 63 Right to Vote Not Necessarily Given to Black Men and Others. “How large a portion of the population should be trusted with the control of the government is a question of expe¬ diency merely. In any purely native American community manhood suffrage works infinitely better than would any other system of government, and throughout our country at large, in spite of the large number of ignorant foreign-born or colored voters it is probably preferable as it stands to any modification of it: but there is no more natural right why a white man over twenty-one should vote than there is why a negro woman under eighteen should not. Civil rights and personal freedom are not terms that, necessarily imply the right to vote. * * * So that, when any people reach a certain stage of mental development and of capacity to take care of its own concerns it is far better that it should itself take the reins.”—Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton.” page 243. “Of course to give women their just rights does not bv any means imply that they should necessarily be allowed to vote, any more than the bestowal of the rights of citizenship upon alien and blacks must of necessity carry with it the same privilege. —The same, page 296. “We favor such Congressional action as shall determine whether by special discriminations the elective franchise in any State has been unconstitutionally limited, and, if such is die case, we demand that representation in Congress and in the electoral colleges shall be proprotionately reduced as directed by the Constitution of the United States.”—Repub¬ lican platform adopted at Chicago, 1904. Better for Slavery to Continue in Haiti. “Black slavery in Haiti was characterized by worse abuse than ever was the case in the United States, yet, looking at the condition of that Republic now, it may well be ques¬ tioned whether it would not have been greatly to her benefit 64 Roosevelt , Historian in the end to have slavery continue a century or so longer— its ultimate extinction being certain—rather than to have had her obtain freedom as she actually did with the results that have flowed from her action.”—Roosevelt’s “Life of B|titon,” page 158. Abolitionists Not Entitled to Praise. “The cause of the Abolitionists has had such a halo shed round it by the after course of events, which they themselves did very little to shape, that it has been usual to speak of them with absurdly exaggerated praise.” * * * “Their share in abolishing slavery was far less than was commonly represented.”—Roosevelt’s “Life of Benton,” page 158. “During all the terrible four years that sad, strong, patient Lincoln worked and suffered for the people, he had to dread the influence of the extreme Abolitionist only less than that of the Copperheads. Many of their leaders possessed no good qualities beyond theii fearlessness and truth—qualities that were also possessed by Southern fire-eaters.”—The same, pages 159 and 160.