Theodore Roosevelt & the Dawn of the American Century: “I will tolerate no assault upon the navy or upon the honor of the country”

“…nor will I permit anything so fraught with menace as the usurpation by any clique of Wall Street senators of my function as Commander-in-Chief.”.

With an original cartoon that Roosevelt himself cut out and sent with the letter

In 1898, at the end of the Spanish-American War, the United States was thrust into the mainstream of international affairs and gained status as a world power, acquiring as possessions the Philippines and Guam in the Pacific, then Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt brought to the White House a deep conviction that only through a strong navy could a nation project its power and prestige abroad. At his behest, from 1904 to 1907, American shipyards turned out 11 new battleships to give the Navy awesome battle capabilities. This was timely because in 1907 hostilities with Japan seemed possible, and the Japanese navy dominated the Pacific. America’s problems with Japan arose shortly after TR mediated the treaty ending the Russo-Japanese War. In that conflict the Russian fleet had been annihilated by the Japanese, but despite their triumphs over the Russians on the high seas, the Japanese failed to get all they felt they deserved at the peace table and blamed Roosevelt for it. In the same year, anti-Japanese feelings were sweeping California and the San Francisco Board of Education ordered the segregation of all immigrant and descendent Japanese school children. When the news of this reached Japan, violent anti-American protests broke out. Roosevelt managed to persuade the Board of Education to discontinue its segregation policy in exchange for an agreement with Japan to slow down its stream of immigrants into the United States.

Roosevelt developed a plan to send the navy around the world, expecting both to impress foreign nations, serve as a warning to potential adversaries, and provide the American people with an example of US naval prepardness, strength and range. Such an impression, he hoped, would help him get the desired appropriations for even more battleships. Not everyone approved of the idea of sending the fleet on this cruise. Some critics were against this show of force while others were worried that the Atlantic naval defenses would be weakened by taking away so many ships. In Congress, opponents like anti-Roosevelt Republican Senator Eugene Hale, chairman of the Naval Appropriations Committee, threatened to withhold money for the cruise. But this didn’t bother Roosevelt who replied that it would proceed anyway.

Roosevelt came to office in a progressive era when corporate monopolies and conspiracies, price fixing, discriminatory commercial preferences and outright dishonest business practices were being recognized as problems that needed to be addressed. The new President believed strongly that the government could give Americans a more just and equitable society, and to do this he needed to bring order and fair dealings to industry and commerce. He broke presidential ground by establishing a detailed program to “effectively control and regulate all big combinations,” calling it the Square Deal. He created the Bureau of Corporations with the power to investigate businesses engaged in interstate commerce, pursued this policy of “trust-busting” by initiating suits against 44 major corporations, managed passage of the Elkins Act that regularized railroad rates and prohibited discriminatory practices, and fought for and obtained regulation of food and drugs. Against the opposition of businesses seeking to exploit natural resources, he advocated conservation and set aside vast government lands to strictly public use. Just as importantly, he attacked the corruption in government that allowed the abuses he now sought to end.

But Roosevelt went a step farther than indicting business, he was an outspoken opponent of those he called malefactors of great weath who used their power for evil purposes. As early as 1895, he wrote “Too much cannot be said against the men of wealth who sacrifice everything to getting wealth. There is not in the world a more ignoble character than the mere money-getting American, insensible to every duty, regardless of every principle, bent only on amassing a fortune…” In 1906, TR complained “I do not like the social conditions at present. The dull, purblind folly of the very rich men, their greed and arrogance…and the corruption in business and politics have tended to produce a very unhealthy condition…” For these sentiments and personal assaults on them and their entire way of life, the very rich hated Theodore Roosevelt as they would his cousin Franklin thirty years later.

Wall Street was controlled by fewer men then and they were mainly well acquainted. Many belonged to the same clubs where they would meet to express their antipathy to Roosevelt and his policies. When, from January 1906-November 1907, there was a decline in the stock market that saw the Dow Jones Industrial Average lose 48% of its value, TR, in a speech on August 20, 1907, blamed the financial elites for fomenting that loss. ”It may well be that the determination of the government (in which, gentlemen, it will not waver) to punish certain malefactors of great wealth, has been responsible for something of the trouble; at least to the extent of having caused these men to combine to bring about as much financial stress as possible, in order to discredit the policy of the government and thereby secure a reversal of that policy, so that they may enjoy unmolested the fruits of their own evil-doing…I regard this contest as one to determine who shall rule this free country—the people through their governmental agents, or a few ruthless and domineering men whose wealth makes them peculiarly formidable because they hide behind the breastworks of corporate organization.”

A few days later, in its issue of August 28, 1907, the satirical magazine Puck ran a cartoon entitled “Lunch Hour in Wall Street,” with the left panel picturing five businessmen smugly enjoying their champagne and cigars over the caption “Before Roosevelt’s name is mentioned,” and the right panel showing  them in a turmoil, cursing and kicking over their champagne, above the simple word “After.” It well illustrated the attitutde of business to TR at the time, and he saw the cartoon and was much taken with it. He was unafraid of these powerful men and dared them to impeach him; they hated him for that as well.

Mentioned also in the letter: 1) for almost half a century, the reformer and journalist Dr. Albert Shaw was the owner and editor of “The American Review of Reviews.” His magazine remains one of the best primary sources on American reform between 1890 and 1920, providing not only a panoramic view of the range of reformers’ interests, but also the ties between British and American progressives. 2) During his campaign in 1904, Roosevelt had declared that he would not run again, yet with 1908 approaching, many urged him to do so. 3) Mark Twain was one of TR’s favorite authors and a noted progressive. 4) Charles H. Moyer was president of the miners’ union and Big Bill Haywood was the union’s secretary. They were activists and in the forefront of advocating confrontation with the mine owners, who badly wanted to be rid of them. In 1906, the two union leaders were arrested for murder on trumped up charges. Union sympathizers from all over the country vociferusly called upon the President to act to free them. Roosevelt was not an enemy of the union cause generally but disliked Haywood and Moyer for “preaching an industrial and social policy that is damaging to the best interests of the wage-workers of the country.” Clarence Darrow headed the Moyer/Haywood defense team and the men were ultimately acquitted.

Typed Letter Signed on White House letterhead but datelined Oyster Bay, N.Y., two pages, September 3, 1907, to Shaw, packed with important commentary demonstrating his courage, attacking the wealthy malefactors and Wall Street, defending sending the White Fleet, discussing Japan, and ending with a mention of Mark Twain. “Would you be willing to reproduce this cartoon from Puck??Puck is entirely disinterested and as far as I know is rather unfavorable to me, and the cartoon is simply a good illustration of the current mania in Wall Street. As regards myself, the mania makes not one particle of difference. Unless I am impeached I shall be President for eighteen months, and I shall most certainly not be President any longer, and in all probability will hold no public office, so that the hysterical violence of the attacks of the Wall Street crowd are of no possible consequence to me. But they have shown signs recently of getting into a condition not much better than that of the Moyer and Haywood people. The New York Sun, for instance, which is their most servile and most violent and most unscrupulous representative, is, as part of its campaign on behalf of the wealthy malefactor class, trying to prevent the fleet from going to the Pacific. It cannot prevent it. I will tolerate no assault upon the navy or upon the honor of the country, nor will I permit anything so fraught with menace as the usurpation by any clique of Wall Street senators of my function as Commander-in-Chief. You know far too much of foreign events and of the needs of the navy for it to be necessary for me to explain to you how important it is that we should now see by actual experiment just how our battle fleet can go to the Pacific, and you perhaps know how useful the mere statement that it was going there has already been in quieting the clamor for hostilities against us by the Japanese yellow press. Can not you come here to lunch Friday the 13th??Mark Twain and Doubleday will be there…” The original cartoon from Puck is included.