The Battle for National Reform: Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson

1
The Battle for National Reform Roosevelt, Taft,
and Wilson

• Chapter 22

2
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• 1901 President McKinley assassinated
• I told William McKinley that it was a mistake to
  nominate that wild man at Philadelphia, I asked
  him if he realized what would happen if he should
  die. Now look, that damned cowboy is President
  of the United States! Mark Hanna

3
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt became the youngest president (42) but
  he never openly rebelled against the leaders of
  his party, instead he became a champion of
  cautious, moderate change

4
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Believed that the government should be a mediator
  of the public good, with the president at its
  center, he also believed that economic
  concentration had resulted in a consolidation of
  power that produced dangerous abuses of power,
  urged regulation (but not destruction) of the
  trusts

5
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt wanted the government to have the power
  to investigate the activities of the corporations
  and publicize the results, believing that
  educated public opinion would eliminate most of
  the corporate abuses

6
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Department of Commerce and Labor (1903) - along
  with the Bureau of Corporations was to
  investigate activities of corporations and
  publicize them

7
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• In 1902 Roosevelt ordered the Justice Department
  to invoke the Sherman Anti-Trust Act against the
  Northern Securities Company, which was a 400
  million railroad monopoly in the Northwest led by
  JP Morgan, EH Harriman, and James J. Hill.

8
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• If we have done anything wrong, send your man to
  my man and they can fix it up, JP Morgan,
  Roosevelt proceeded with the case and in 1904 the
  Supreme Court case ruled that the company must be
  dissolved

9
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Even though Roosevelt filed more than 40
  additional antitrust suits during his presidency,
  he had no serious commitment to reverse the
  prevailing trend toward economic concentration

10
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• In 1902 the United Mine Workers went on strike
  against the anthracite coal industry, it dragged
  on long enough to endanger coal supplies,
  Roosevelt asked both operators and miners to
  accept impartial

11
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Federal arbitration, the mine operators resisted
  and Roosevelt threatened to seize the mines, in
  arbitration the miners got a 10 wage increase
  and a 9 hour work day, more then the union
  wouldve got without Roosevelts help, but
  Roosevelt also on several occasions sent in
  federal troops on the behalf of the employers,
  Roosevelts Square Deal

12
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• During Roosevelts first term he was principally
  concerned with winning re-election, so could not
  afford to antagonize the conservative Republican
  Old Guard, he dispensed patronage to
  conservatives and progressives equally, he won
  the support of northern businessmen and reformers
  alike.

13
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• In the election of 1904 Roosevelt faced
  conservative Democrat Alton B. Parker and won 57
  of the popular vote and lost no state outside of
  the South, was free to display the extent of his
  commitment to reform in his second term

14
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• The Interstate Commerce Act of 1887 established
  the Interstate Commerce Commission, which was an
  early effort to regulate the railroad industry
  but it was weakened by the courts, Roosevelt got
  the Hepburn.

15
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Railroad Regulation Act of 1905 passed which
  sought to restore some regulatory authority over
  railroad rates to the government, many were
  enraged at how cautious it was (Senator
  LaFollette)

16
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• The Pure Food and Drug Act restricted the sale of
  dangerous or ineffective medicines, but was
  limited by its weak enforcement mechanisms

17
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• In 1906 Upton Sinclair wrote the powerful novel
  The Jungle, which caused Roosevelt to push for
  the Meat Inspection Act that ultimately helped
  eliminate many diseases once transported in
  impure meat

18
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Starting in 1907 Roosevelt began pushing for more
  stringent reforms such as an 8-hour work day,
  compensation for victims of industrial accidents,
  an inheritance and income tax, and regulation of
  the stock market.

19
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt also began to openly criticize
  conservatives in Congress and the judiciary who
  were obstructing these programs, this resulted in
  a widening gap between the president and
  conservative wing of his party

20
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt was concerned about the unregulated
  exploitation of Americas natural resources and
  its remaining wilderness, using his executive
  powers Roosevelt restricted private development
  on millions of acres of undeveloped land, mostly
  in the West, by adding them to the National
  Forest system

21
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Conservatives in Congress passed a law in 1907
  restricting Roosevelts authority over public
  land, Roosevelt and Gifford Pinchot (chief
  forester) worked to seize all the forests and
  many of the waterpower sites that were still in
  the public domain before the bill became law

22
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Conservationists promoted policies to protect
  land for carefully managed development, the
  National Forest Service (led by Pinchot)
  supported rational and efficient human use of the
  wilderness

23
Establishment of National Parks and Forests
24
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt's legacy in conservation was that he
  established the government role as a manager of
  the continuing development of the wilderness

25
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• The National Reclamation Act (Newlands Act)
  provided federal funds for the construction of
  dams, reservoirs and canals in the West -
  projects that would open new lands for
  cultivation and provide cheap electric power this
  was the beginning of many years of critical
  federal aid for irrigation and power development
  in the West

26
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• George Perkins wrote Man and Nature in which he
  said the most important consequence of losing
  forests was the forests role in stabilizing the
  natural environment, received wide attention and
  became the basis for the National Forest Service

27
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt championed the expansion of the
  National Forest System as a way to protect the
  landscape for continued rational lumbering, but
  he also greatly expanded the National Park System
  to protect public land from any exploitation or
  development at all

28
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• First national park was Yellowstone in Wyoming
  (1872), followed by Yosemite and Sequoia in
  California and Mount Rainer in Washington
  (1890s), Roosevelt added Crater Lake (OR), Mesa
  Verde (UT), Platt (OK), Wind Cave (SD)

29
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Hetch Hetchy Valley in Yosemite was a spectacular
  high walled valley highly popular with
  conservationists, but San Francisco residents
  wanted to dam it in order to create reservoir for
  the city, after the San Francisco earthquake of
  1906 and the resulting fire, the public outcry
  for the dam increased.

30
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Opposed by Muir and the Sierra Club, the case was
  turned over to Pinchot who approved construction
  of the dam, Pinchot who believed in the rational
  use of nature was not swayed by Muirs aesthetic
  and spiritual arguments

31
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Muir helped place a referendum on the issue on
  the ballot in 1908, but dam was approved by huge
  margins, the construction of the dam would
  finally begin after WWI, the fight against the
  Hetch Hetchy dam helped mobilize a new coalition
  of people committed to preservation, not the
  "rational use" of wilderness

32
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Panic of 1907 American industrial production
  outran the ability of either domestic or foreign
  markets to absorb it, the banking system and the
  stock market displayed pathetic inadequacies, and
  irresponsible speculation and rampant financial
  mismanagement shattered the prosperity that many
  thought was permanent

33
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• The conservatives blamed Roosevelt's "mad"
  economic policies, he disagreed but did not
  interfere with their recovery efforts, JP Morgan
  helped create a pool of assets from several
  important New York banks to prop up shaky
  financial institutions.

34
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• The key to this arrangement was the purchase of
  the shares of Tennessee Coal and Iron Company
  which were held by a threatened New York bank, US
  Steel would buy the shares but needed assurances
  from Roosevelt that he would not face antitrust
  action, Roosevelt agreed and the Panic soon
  subsided

35
Theodore Roosevelt and The Modern Presidency

• Roosevelt made a promise in 1904 that he would
  not seek a third term, so after 8 years in the
  White House in which he had transformed the role
  of the presidency in American government,
  Roosevelt retired from public life at the age of
  50

36
The Troubled Succession

• William Howard Taft was Roosevelt's handpicked
  successor, seemed acceptable to both progressives
  and conservatives, easily defeated William
  Jennings Bryan in the 1908 election, however, 4
  years later Taft left office as the most
  decisively defeated president of the 20th
  Century, his party deeply divided, and with the
  Democrats in control of the government for the
  first time in 20 years

37
The Troubled Succession

• Taft called Congress into special session to
  lower protective tariff rates, but Taft made no
  attempt to overcome the opposition of Old Guard
  Republicans arguing that it would violate
  doctrine of separation of powers, the result was
  the Payne-Aldrich Tariff which reduced tariff
  rates scarcely at all, and in some areas raised
  them, progressives resented Tafts passivity

38
The Troubled Succession

• Taft replaced Roosevelt's secretary of interior,
  James R. Garfield an ardent conservationist, with
  a the conservative Richard A. Ballinger, a
  conservative corporate lawyer, Ballinger
  attempted to invalidate Roosevelt's removal of 1
  million acres of forests and mineral reserves
  from the public lands available for private
  development

39
The Troubled Succession

• Louis Glavis, an Interior Department
  investigator, charged Ballinger with having
  connived to turn over valuable public coal lands
  in Alaska to a private syndicate for personal
  profit, Glavis took the evidence to Pinchot and
  Pinchot took the investigation to Taft.

40
The Troubled Succession

• Taft investigated the claims, found that they
  were groundless and fired Glavis, Pinchot leaked
  the story out into the press and Taft fired
  Pinchot for insubordination.

41
The Troubled Succession

• The result of the Ballinger-Pinchot dispute
  aroused public passion and Taft alienated
  supporters of Roosevelt completely
• Roosevelt became furious with Taft when he
  returned to New York in 1910 and felt that he
  alone was capable of reuniting the Republican
  Party

(Taft has) completely twisted around the
policies I advocated and acted upon.
Theodore Roosevelt
42
The Troubled Succession

• Roosevelt's New Nationalism made it clear he
  had moved away from the cautious conservatism of
  the first years of his presidency, argued that
  social justice was possible only through vigorous
  efforts of strong federal government whose
  executive acted as the steward of the public
  welfare, those who thought primarily of property
  rights and personal profit must now give way to
  the advocate of human welfare

43
The Troubled Succession

• Roosevelt supported graduated income and
  inheritance taxes, workers' compensation for
  industrial accidents, regulation of the labor of
  women and children, tariff revision, firmer
  regulation of corporations

44
The Troubled Succession

• In the Congressional elections of 1910,
  conservative Republicans went down to defeat
  while progressive Republican incumbents were
  reelected, Democrats ran progressive candidates
  of their own and gained control of the House of
  Representatives for the first time in 16 years,
  reform sentiment was on the rise

45
The Troubled Succession

• In 1911 the Taft administration announced a suit
  that charged US Steel with antitrust violations
  in the 1907 acquisition of the Tennessee Coal and
  Iron Company, Roosevelt was enraged by the
  implication that he had acted improperly

46
The Troubled Succession

• In 1912 Senator La Follette, who had been
  campaigning for president himself, suffered a
  nervous breakdown (exhausted and distraught over
  his daughters illness) Roosevelt announced his
  candidacy for president on February 22, 1912

47
The Troubled Succession

• The campaign for the Republican nomination was
  battle between Roosevelt (progressives) and Taft
  (conservatives) but Taft remained the choice of
  most party leaders who controlled the nominating
  process, Roosevelt told the convention We stand
  at Armageddon and we battle for the Lord, the
  Republican convention nominated Taft

48
The Troubled Succession

• Roosevelt launched the new Progressive Party and
  nominated himself as the presidential candidate,
  Roosevelt approached the campaign "fit as a bull
  moose", but many of the insurgents who had
  supported him during the primaries refused to
  follow him out of the Republican party

49
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• Democrats nominated the only true progressive
  candidate, Woodrow Wilson, on the 46th ballot at
  the convention in Baltimore in 1912
• President of Princeton University 1902 1910,
  Governor of New Jersey 1910 1912, displayed a
  commitment to reform

50
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• Wilson's New Freedom believed bigness (economic
  concentration in the trusts) was both unjust and
  inefficient, proper response to monopoly was not
  to regulate it but to destroy it

51
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• 1912 Election Roosevelt and Taft split the
  Republican vote allowing Wilson to win the
  election

52
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• Wilson concentrated the powers of the executive
  branch in his own hands, he exerted firm control
  over his cabinet, and delegated real authority to
  those whose loyalty to him was beyond question,
  Colonel Edward M. House was Wilsons most
  powerful advisor even though he held no official
  position in the executive branch

53
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The Democrats captured both houses of Congress in
  the 1912 election, which made it much easier for
  Wilson to get his progressive agenda passed

54
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• Wilson called Congress into special session in
  order to pass the Underwood- Simmons Tariff,
  which substantially lowered the protective tariff
  in order to allow real competition into American
  markets and break the power of the trusts.

55
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• Congress approved a graduated income tax (under
  the 16th Amendment) to make up for lost revenue
  from the tariff, this first modern income tax
  imposed a 1 tax on individuals and corporations
  earning over 4,000 up to a maximum of 6 on
  incomes of over 500,000

56
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The Federal Reserve Act (1913) created twelve
  regional banks, each to be owned and controlled
  by the individual banks of its district, these
  regional banks would hold a certain percentage of
  the assets of their member banks in reserve.

57
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The system would use those reserves to support
  loans to private banks at an interest rate that
  the Federal Reserve Board would set, they would
  also issue a new type of currency, Federal
  Reserve Notes, which would become the nations
  basic medium of trade and backed by the
  government.

58
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The Federal Reserve System would be able to shift
  funds quickly to troubled areas, to meet
  increased demand for credit, or to protect
  imperiled banks.

59
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The Federal Trade Commission created a regulatory
  agency that would help businesses determine in
  advance whether their actions would be acceptable
  to the government, the agency would also have
  authority to launch prosecutions against "unfair
  trade practices", it would also have the power to
  investigate corporate behavior

60
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The Clayton Antitrust Act was attacked by
  conservative interests and weakened it greatly
• Wilson did little to protect it

61
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• By the fall of 1914, Wilson believed that
  agitation for reform would slowly subside, he
  refused to support movement for women's suffrage,
  condoned the reimposition of segregation in the
  agencies of the federal government (southern
  Democrats), he dismissed progressive proposals
  for additional reform legislation as
  unconstitutional or unnecessary

62
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• The 1914 congressional elections resulted in the
  Democrats suffering major losses in Congress led
  by voters who had supported the Progressive Party
  returning to the Republican Party

63
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• In January 1916, Wilson appointed Louis Brandeis
  to the Supreme Court becoming the first Jewish
  member of the Court and also the most progressive
  member of the Court

64
Woodrow Wilson and the New Freedom

• Wilson sponsored measures that expanded the role
  of the national government, he supported the
  Keating-Owen Act (1916) which was the first
  federal law regulating child labor, it prohibited
  the shipment of goods produced by underage
  children across state lines, the Supreme Court
  struck down the Keating-Owen Act in 1918

65
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The President could act in foreign policy with
  less regard for Congress and the Supreme Court
  overseas the president could exercise power
  unfettered and alone

66
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Roosevelt pursued an activist foreign policy,
  believed in the value of using American power in
  the world "speak softly but carry a big stick",
• He believed in an important distinction between
  the "civilized" and "uncivilized" nations of the
  world

67
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Civilized nations were predominantly white,
  Anglo-Saxon, producers of industrial goods, had a
  right and duty to intervene in the affairs of the
  backward nation to preserve order and stability.
• Uncivilized nations were non-white, Latin or
  Slavic, suppliers of raw materials and markets,
  not yet industrialized

68
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• By 1906, the American navy was surpassed only by
  that of Britain, although Germany was rapidly
  gaining ground

69
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Japan staged a surprise attack on the Russian
  fleet at Port Arthur in southern Manchuria
  (China), Roosevelt agreed to mediate an end to
  the conflict, at the peace conference in
  Portsmouth, New Hampshire Roosevelt extracted
  from the Russians a recognition of Japan's
  territorial gains, and from Japan an agreement to
  cease fighting and expansion

70
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• He also negotiated a secret agreement with the
  Japanese to ensure that the US could continue to
  trade freely in the region, Roosevelt won the
  Nobel Peace Prize in 1906 for his work in ending
  the Russo-Japanese War

71
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Japan destroyed the Russian fleet at Port Arthur
  and began to emerge as the preeminent naval power
  in the Pacific, the Japanese began to exclude
  American trade from many of the territories that
  it controlled.

72
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Roosevelt sent the Great White Fleet (sixteen
  American battleships) on a trip around the world
  to remind Japan of the potential might of the US
  Naval forces

73
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• In 1902, the naval forces of Britain, Italy and
  Germany blockaded Venezuela's coast in response
  to Venezuela's reneging on debts owed to European
  countries, German ships began to bombard a
  Venezuelan port amid rumors that Germany planned
  to establish a permanent base in the region,
  Roosevelt used the threat of American naval power
  to pressure German navy to withdraw

74
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Roosevelt Corollary (1904) to the Monroe
  doctrine, the US had the right not only to oppose
  European intervention in the Western Hemisphere,
  but to intervene itself in the domestic affairs
  of its neighbors if they proved unable to
  maintain order and national sovereignty on their
  own

75
The United States and Latin America, 1895-1941
76
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• In 1903 the Dominican Republic went bankrupt, it
  owed 22 million to European nations, Roosevelt
  gained control of Dominican customs and
  distributed 45 of the revenues to Dominicans and
  the rest to foreign creditors

77
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The Platt Amendment gave the US the right to
  prevent any foreign power from intruding into
  Cuba, in 1906 American troops landed to keep the
  peace and remained there for 3 years

78
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The Panama Canal was the most celebrated
  accomplishment of Roosevelt's presidency it
  linked the Pacific and the Atlantic by creating a
  channel through Central America

79
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Roosevelt sent John Hay, his Secretary of State,
  to negotiate an agreement with Colombian
  diplomats, Tomas Herren signed an agreement
  giving US perpetual rights to six-mile wide
  "canal zone" across Colombia in return for 10
  million and an annual rent of 250,000

80
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The Colombian Senate was outraged and did not
  ratify the Herren agreement, sent a new
  representative to Washington demanding 20
  million and share of the payment to the French

81
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Phillippe Bunau-Varilla was the chief engineer of
  the French canal project, he helped organize and
  finance a revolution in Panama, Roosevelt landed
  troops from the U.S.S Nashville to maintain
  order and their presence prevented Colombian
  forced from suppressing the rebellion.

82
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The new Panamanian government was recognized by
  Roosevelt 3 days later and quickly agreed to the
  canal project, it opened in 1914

83
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Dollar Diplomacy Taft's Secretary of State
  Philander C. Knox worked aggressively to extend
  American investments into less-developed regions,
  Americans intervene in Nicaragua (1909) and then
  made substantial loans to the new government thus
  increasing the US financial leverage over the
  country, two years later a revolution broke out
  again and US troops remained in Nicaragua for
  over a decade

84
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• 1916 Americans established a military government
  in Dominican Republic after Dominicans refused to
  accept a treaty that would have made the country
  a virtual American protectorate Wilson bought the
  Danish West Indies from the Dutch (fearful that
  the Germans were about to acquire them) and
  renamed them the Virgin Islands

85
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Under Porfirio Diaz, the corrupt dictator of
  Mexico, American businesses had been establishing
  an enormous economic presence in Mexico, in 1910,
  Diaz was overthrown by Francisco Madero who
  promised democratic reform and seemed hostile to
  American businesses in Mexico.

86
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The US encouraged Victoriano Huerta to depose
  Madero and the Taft administration was ready to
  recognize the new Huerta regime and welcome back
  a receptive environment for American investments
  in Mexico.

87
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The new government murdered Madero and Wilson
  announced he would never recognize Huerta's
  government of butchers, in 1913, Huerta, with the
  help of American business interests, established
  a full military dictatorship in Mexico

88
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• In April 1914, an officer in Huertas army
  temporarily arrested several American sailors
  from the U.S.S Dolphin who had gone ashore in
  Tampico, the men were immediately released but
  the American admiral was not satisfied with the
  apology he received demanded that the Huerta
  forces fire a 21 gun salute to the American flag
  as display of public penance, the Mexicans refused

89
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Wilson used the incident as a pretext for seizing
  the Mexican port of Veracruz, in a clash with
  Mexican forces Americans killed 126 of the
  defenders and suffered 19 casualties of their own

90
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The Carranza faction captured Mexico City, but
  refused to accept American guidelines for the
  creation of a new government, Wilson considered
  throwing American support to Pancho Villa but his
  military position deteriorated and Wilson
  abandoned him.

91
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Pancho Villa retaliated by taking 16 American
  mining engineers off a train in northern Mexico
  and shooting them, 3 months later Pancho Villa
  led his soldiers across the border into Columbus,
  New Mexico where he killed 17 more Americans

92
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to lead
  an American expeditionary force across the
  Mexican border in pursuit of Pancho Villa, they
  never captured him but did get into conflicts
  with the Mexican army in which 40 Mexicans were
  killed and 12 Americans were killed.

93
The "Big Stick" America and the World, 1901-1917

• The US and Mexico looked ready to go to war, but
  Wilson withdraw quietly and granted formal
  recognition to the Carranza regime.