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U.S. Foreign Policy: The Paradox of World Power Fifth Edition – Ebook PDF Version
Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy
JOHN M. THOMPSON
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Thompson, John M., 1977– author.
Title: Great power rising : Theodore Roosevelt and the politics of U.S. foreign policy / John M. Thompson.
Description: New York, NY : Oxford University Press, [2019] | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018027025 (print) | LCCN 2018042417 (ebook) | ISBN 9780190859961 (Updf) | ISBN 9780190859978 (Epub) | ISBN 9780190859954 (hardcover : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919—Political and social views. | Political leadership—United States— Case studies. | United States—Foreign relations—20th century.
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018027025
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Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America
For Katka
1. The Education of TR: Politics and Foreign Policy, 1882–1903 10
2. A Subject of Such Weight: The Politics of European Interventions in Latin America, 1901–1903 34
3. Panic-Struck Senators, Businessmen, and Everybody Else: Colombia, Panama, and the Canal Route, 1902–1904 51
4. Triumphs and Setbacks: The Roosevelt Corollary, the 1904 Election, and the Dominican Intervention 77
5. Behaving Righteously: Relations with China, 1904–1906
6. Foolish Offensiveness: Relations with Japan, 1905–1909
7. The Stern, Unflinching Performance of Duty: TR and World War I, 1909–1919
Acknowledgments
This book originated as a master’s research paper at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and expanded into a doctoral dissertation at the University of Cambridge. That I have been able to complete it is thanks in no small measure to the benevolence of others. Royce Ammon, the late Robert Farlow, Piero Gleijeses, Michael Mandelbaum, and John Harper all, at one point or another, offered timely encouragement and guidance about graduate studies.
John A. Thompson deserves a special note of appreciation. He was a tireless and conscientious supervisor at Cambridge, and I was fortunate to learn the fundamentals of historical research from a master of the craft. He remains a friend and shared extensive advice on various drafts of the manuscript.
Kees van Minnen, Hans Krabbendam, Giles Scott Smith, and Leontien Joosse cultivated a friendly and productive atmosphere during my time at the Roosevelt Study Center (now the Roosevelt Institute for American Studies) that made it much easier to conclude my doctoral work. My viva examiners, Jay Sexton and Andrew Preston, imparted astute advice about turning the dissertation into a monograph. Most of the process of revising for publication took place at the University College Dublin Clinton Institute, where I was lucky to work with Liam Kennedy and Catherine Carey. Andy Wenger, Oliver Thränert, and Martin Zapfe, at the Center for Security Studies, ETH Zurich, are ideal colleagues. I am grateful for the time they granted me to make a final round of revisions. Steve Casey shared invaluable advice about book proposals and academic publishers. John Milton Cooper intervened, at a late stage with wisdom and unexpected kindness, to help me reach the finish line. Susan Ferber, my editor, showed interest in this project at a relatively early stage and patiently waited for me to address some significant shortcomings.
Acknowledgments
Vital financial assistance came from the Sarah Norton Fund, Wolfson College, the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge, and the Peter J. Parish Memorial Fund.
Finally, I would have been forced to quit long ago were it not for the love of my family. My parents provided support, moral and financial, above and beyond what I had any right to expect. My wife Katka has borne, with humor and patience, the burden of being married to a scholar. She does not share my passion for this subject, but never questioned my need to pursue it. This book is dedicated to her.
Great Power Rising
Introduction
An intriguing paradox confronts U.S. presidents as they conduct foreign policy. On one hand, they enjoy an enormous amount of influence and freedom for maneuver—far more than in domestic affairs. They engage in diplomacy and negotiate agreements with little or no oversight, at least in the short term. They oversee the enormous executive branch, which encompasses the majority of the national security and foreign policy functions. Though only Congress can declare war, in practice modern presidents have been able to deploy military force, or threaten to do so, whenever they deem it necessary. They can issue executive orders at will, even if these are subject to judicial review. Presidential rhetoric is a potent tool that can set the terms of debate at home and, in many cases, around the world. As the nation’s might has grown to bestride the globe, U.S. presidents have come to be widely seen as wielding a degree of power unmatched in human history.
On the other hand, due to the nature of the U.S. political system, presidents face many potential constraints. Elections occur so frequently that insiders have coined the phrase “the permanent campaign” to describe the way that presidents are forced to govern. Not surprisingly, given this need to prepare for the next election as soon as the previous one ends, partisan considerations color nearly every aspect of the policymaking process. Hence, it is tempting for presidents to view politics as a zero-sum game. Success helps their party and harms the opposition, or vice versa, with little in the way of a middle ground. The notion of a bipartisan foreign policy has mostly been a myth.
The tendency to view the politics of foreign policy in such stark terms is heightened by continuous scrutiny from the press and public. Though technology has evolved over the years, modern presidents have all governed in the knowledge that most of their decisions and utterances will be recorded and scrutinized. The media is particularly important because it serves as a link
between the president and the public. Presidents and their advisers interpret trends in public opinion, at least in large part, by analyzing newspapers, television news, and social media. At the same time, they seek to mobilize public support by influencing news coverage. A remarkably diverse citizenry and powerful lobby groups further complicate matters. It is no wonder that foreign observers frequently remark upon the outsize role that public opinion plays in U.S. politics.1
All of this underscores the complex nature of the political context in which presidents govern and the key role that it plays in foreign policy. Not surprisingly, political scientists and historians have written many books on the subject.2 And yet there are few studies that focus exclusively on individual presidents and how, precisely, they have managed this vital aspect of statecraft.
Perhaps more than any of his successors, Theodore Roosevelt personified the paradox with which commanders in chief in the modern era have had to grapple. Indeed, many consider him to have been the first modern president. He was an adept strategist and skilled politician. He sought to harness the latent power of the federal government, to a greater degree than any of his predecessors, to achieve his objectives. He also recognized, before almost any other policymaker of his era, the extent to which the United States was changing and what this would, or at least could, mean for its foreign policy. With its large and growing population, republican form of government, the largest economy in the world, and an enviable position in the western hemisphere, between two large oceans—which had allowed it to develop largely untouched by the vicissitudes of wars and political upheaval in Eurasia—the United States had the makings of a great power. In fact, it could conceivably become the greatest of all world powers, if only it were to resolve to act as one. Roosevelt devoted much of his energy to pursuing this goal.
At the same time, numerous obstacles confronted those, such as TR, who sought to expand U.S. influence. One was the fear, held by many, that the U.S. system of government would be damaged, or even destroyed, by such ambitions. Playing an active role in power politics, interfering in foreign conflicts, maintaining a large military, or forming alliances with other countries could endanger America’s own republican liberty. Notably, some of these concerns played a role in fostering the overwhelming support for neutrality during the early years of World War I, much to the chagrin of TR.
Another challenge was posed, ironically, by the very system of government Roosevelt revered. The design of the Constitution, with its grant of overlapping powers to the three branches of government, made it difficult for peacetime presidents in the nineteenth century to pursue ambitious
foreign policy agendas—not least because members of Congress tended to be jealous of their constitutional prerogatives. The tendency was always toward the status quo and against dramatic change. Even though there was initially strong support for the war against Spain in 1898, for instance, many Americans— especially among members of the educated elite— criticized the acquisition of imperial possessions in the Caribbean and Pacific regions. Such opposition was amplified by a vigorous press and a high degree of partisanship.
Given the seminal role he played in the nation’s emergence as a great power, TR is an obvious choice for a book about the politics of U.S. foreign policy—so obvious, in fact, that a number of historians have examined this facet of his career. But none of the existing studies focus exclusively on the politics of his foreign policy and mostly refer to it within the context of other topics. Furthermore, these works have been influenced to a considerable degree by a problematic understanding of public opinion and domestic politics. Writing between World War I and the Vietnam War, prominent public intellectuals and scholars developed variations of the same argument: that the nature of U.S. politics—with its allegedly myopic Congress, ignorant and apathetic public, and fierce partisanship—often served as an obstacle to successful diplomacy.3
In recent years, scholars have raised questions about this line of thinking. Is the public really that ignorant about foreign policy? Has its influence really been so pernicious? Probably not, it turns out.4
This was particularly true in the case of Theodore Roosevelt, whose career—including his foreign policy—attracted renewed interest after the end of World War II. The postwar picture of Roosevelt painted by most historians presented him as a brilliant strategist who advocated the expansion of U.S. influence, and who was particularly concerned with maintaining the balance of power in Europe and East Asia. He also paid close attention to the public mood and political context when formulating foreign policy. However, the argument went, this sensitivity served mostly to constrain Roosevelt, confronted as he was by an isolationist and indifferent public and Congress, and to prevent a more active, effective, and internationalist approach.5 Over the years, scholars have criticized aspects of this interpretation, but it retains considerable influence.6
This book aims to provide an in-depth study of the politics of an individual president’s foreign policy decision-making, while offering the first comprehensive study of this aspect of TR’s career. It is organized around three principal arguments.
One relates to TR’s conception of national character. When it came to promoting and implementing his foreign policy agenda, Roosevelt was usually able to count on the support of a majority of Americans. Certainly, powerful groups frequently opposed him. Chief among them were members of the cultural, financial, and political elite in the Northeast. This loose and often fractious coalition of anti-imperialists, Democrats, and businessmen disapproved of U.S. policy in the Philippines, the Roosevelt Corollary, naval expansion, and the intervention in Panama (though a substantial number agreed with TR’s campaign for preparedness and his pro-Ally sympathies during World War I). This persistent opposition meant that Roosevelt was forced to devote substantial time and effort to rallying public support. He was convinced that the influence of these men, if left unchecked, would lead the country in a disastrous direction. But he also believed that most Americans, if properly informed, would support sound policies.
Hence, though historians have almost uniformly characterized TR as a pessimist when it came to the willingness of Americans to support a vigorous and just foreign policy, he was actually cautiously optimistic in this regard. The main elements of this worldview coalesced during the late 1890s and solidified during his presidency. He came to believe that most Americans were sensible and willing to do their duty, but were frequently ignorant about events abroad. They were also easily misled by unscrupulous, or well-meaning but naive, opinion leaders. In order to prevent this from happening, it was the duty of policymakers to provide leadership. This required constant communication with the public and a willingness to be forthright about challenges facing the nation, even if such frankness would be politically disadvantageous in the short term.
Roosevelt had an almost Jacksonian faith in the country’s political system and the patriotism and common sense of its average citizen. “Lincoln is my hero,” he wrote to one correspondent, in 1905. “He was a man of the people who always felt with and for the people, but who had not the slightest touch of the demagogue in him.” Like Lincoln, TR referred fondly to the mass public as the “plain people.”7 This perspective, when combined with a lifelong suspicion of members of the northeastern elite, often led Roosevelt to seek a mandate for action from the people as a means of overcoming opposition in Congress or among influential public figures.
The frequency with which Roosevelt felt compelled to make his case to the public meant that the political landscape at home was of considerable importance. This leads to the second theme of the book. While the prevailing interpretation of the roles of domestic politics and public opinion in his
diplomacy has long been that they primarily limited his freedom for maneuver after decisions had been made, they in fact influenced his decision-making at all points of the process. At times, his awareness of the need for public support shaped the policies that he adopted. What was more, domestic political concerns constituted less of a constraint than has been assumed. Some of his most important foreign policy decisions actually provided a boost at the polls. Certainly, he suffered setbacks—most notably during the first few years of World War I—but, when it came to promoting the core of his agenda, in the long run he usually outmaneuvered his opponents in Congress, the press, and among members of the northeastern elite.
That TR usually triumphed in these battles was not just a measure of his political acumen; it also reflected the state of public opinion. The third contention of this book is that public sentiment was not nearly as inclined toward isolationism as many accounts of this period claim. In fact, Roosevelt’s optimism about his countrymen rested upon a mostly accurate assessment of national sentiment.8 Over the course of his career TR contributed to a gradual expansion of the country’s role in international politics and its emergence as the hegemonic power in the western hemisphere. This occurred even as he remained popular, with the exception of a few years after he left the White House. This was not a result primarily of TR’s ability to manipulate or circumvent public opinion, as is often asserted, but rather a reflection of the fact that, most of the time, his agenda reflected ideas that were acceptable to a majority of Americans.
This is a work of history that does not attempt to contribute directly to the large body of political science literature on this subject. However, it employs terminology and concepts such as elite and mass public opinion, opinion leaders, the attentive public, and ethnic and lobby groups.9 It also assesses the character of public opinion and the political landscape where possible, despite evaluating an era that predated the development of modern opinionpolling techniques.
While the lack of opinion-polling data presents a challenge to the historian, it is not insuperable. For instance, Ernest R. May’s classic work American Imperialism presents a snapshot of public opinion near the outset of Roosevelt’s career. In seeking to understand the sudden burst of imperialist fervor that gripped many Americans in the last years of the nineteenth century, May provides a sophisticated analysis of the structure of contemporary public opinion and the attitudes of various voting groups. He calculates that the attentive public probably numbered between 1.5 and 3 million men, or between 10 and 20 percent of the voting public.10 These men would have been
mostly found among the better-educated portions of society—the 500,000 college graduates and 1 to 1.5 million high school graduates—and disproportionately in urban areas where daily newspapers, and thus international news, were more likely to circulate.11
Historians can also gauge public opinion using many of the same methods employed by politicians and others during TR’s era. Roosevelt and his contemporaries utilized a subjective process that sampled newspaper editorial opinion from across the country, with particular emphasis upon publications in New York City; letters from the public, especially members of the political, economic, and cultural elite; and letters from lobby and ethnic groups.12 They also paid close attention to Congress, because the thinking of individual members often reflected their constituents’ opinions. In the days before opinion polls, congressional sentiment was often taken to be representative of public opinion more broadly.13
Newspapers play a prominent part in this story. Circulation nearly tripled between 1880 and 1909, even as the overall quality of reporting dramatically improved.14 Americans of this era, especially policymakers, considered newspapers to be among the best, if still crude, measures of public opinion. Editorial pages played a vital role because editors often ranked among the most influential members of their respective cities and regions. Tasked as they were with reporting on their local communities, they were believed to have special insight into the thinking of their fellow citizens, especially when it came to other opinion leaders.
Even as policymakers such as Roosevelt scrutinized newspapers to develop a sense of what their countrymen were thinking, they also attempted to use them to mobilize public support. This included the relatively straightforward practice of furnishing speeches and statements to the press, as well as the more delicate process of attempting to influence coverage through relationships with individual editors and reporters. Partisan and ideological cleavages in the media further complicated such efforts.
The newspapers and journals used as evidence in this book were selected with several criteria in mind, including geography, ideology, and partisanship. Publications based in New York City feature prominently because policymakers paid particular attention to the nation’s media, cultural, and financial capital. This was especially true because TR was a native of Manhattan and spent much of his career in New York.15 Leading local newspapers play a role in chapters that focus on specific sections of the country. The most important dailies that were affiliated with either major party are surveyed, as are the leading anti-imperialist and mugwump publications. Finally, where
relevant, this book draws upon periodicals that represented specific ethnic or interest groups.
While this approach to evaluating public opinion is imperfect, it is the best available, and policymakers during TR’s era used it with confidence. Notably, what mattered at the time, politically, was not the actual state of public opinion, but what politicians perceived it to be.
A final difficulty of this study is that, as one historian writes, U.S. policymakers have often been “reluctant to admit, even to themselves, that their foreign policy decisions could be affected by private political interests.”
This has left, in many instances, a lack of documentation in the historical record.16 Fortunately, in the case of Roosevelt, this is not an insurmountable problem. TR and his contemporaries were surprisingly frank about the political calculations that influenced their decision-making, at least in private correspondence and with trusted contacts in the media. Moreover, Roosevelt was such a prolific correspondent, and the newspaper coverage of his administration so intense, that there is a substantial amount of evidence.
Evaluating public opinion during Roosevelt’s career poses special challenges, but it also yields new insights. For example, TR practiced an early form of public diplomacy. He was conscious of the fact that public sentiment could be influenced not only by domestic factors, but also by outside sources. This book is the first to document the ways in which TR sought to shape opinion abroad and, more importantly, the methods he used to either facilitate or block such efforts in the United States by his foreign counterparts.17
This book presents a series of these episodes. Although these incidents have been written about by other historians and are necessarily selective and partial, there are compelling reasons to approach TR in this manner. There are no chapter-length considerations of the central role he played in arranging the Treaty of Portsmouth, which ended the Russo-Japanese War; his behindthe-scenes diplomacy during the First Moroccan Crisis; the Alaskan border controversy with Canada; the treatment of Jews in Russia and Romania; and the occupation of Cuba from 1906 to 1909. However, each case study allows for extended scrutiny of crucial episodes and consideration of a sizable amount of evidence. Only by examining a large number of sources in a concentrated manner can a comprehensive understanding of the influence of public opinion and domestic politics on Roosevelt’s foreign policy emerge. Only some episodes in his career lend themselves to such an approach; others, including famous ones, do not provide enough evidence to be useful. By
bringing new evidence to bear upon old questions, this book attempts to revise key aspects of thinking about these episodes in Roosevelt’s career.
Great Power Rising is structured as follows. Chapter 1, “The Education of TR,” examines the formative period in Roosevelt’s professional life. During these years, he developed into a politician of remarkable ability for whom the presidency was a realistic aspiration. During this period, he also came to view foreign policy as an inherently political and partisan process and developed a knack for balancing diplomatic objectives with domestic political necessities. This was true, for instance, when it came to courting voters in the country’s various ethnic groups, something he sought to do throughout his career and a task in which he frequently enjoyed success.
Roosevelt’s ability to parlay his diplomacy abroad into support at home would be crucial because some of the most important foreign policy episodes of his tenure occurred against the backdrop of the presidential election in 1904. Chapter 2, “A Subject of Such Weight,” explains how, during the Venezuela crisis of 1902–1903, TR sought to repel what he and many Americans perceived to be a threat to the Monroe Doctrine by Germany. At the same time, he attempted to assuage the concerns of German-Americans, who were a crucial voting bloc, and many of whom were alienated by the hawkish tone prevalent in the press and Congress. Chapter 3, “Panic-Struck Senators, Businessmen, and Everybody Else,” argues that the president was able to mobilize latent support among the public for his intervention in the Colombian province of Panama in 1903 and for the subsequent treaty that provided for construction of an isthmian canal. He managed to do this in spite of strong opposition from Democrats and anti-imperialists, as well as members of his own party, who initially viewed the episode as a potentially fatal blow to Republican prospects in the upcoming election. Chapter 4, “Triumphs and Setbacks,” explores the ways in Roosevelt’s reformulation of the Monroe Doctrine was influenced by his assessment of public opinion and the political landscape. His decision to delay the implementation of the Roosevelt Corollary until after the election may have been politically shrewd but worsened an already difficult relationship with Congress.
The lukewarm reception of the Roosevelt Corollary in 1905 demonstrated that, despite his deft political touch, TR did not always enjoy the backing of crucial constituencies. This was particularly true when it came to racial attitudes toward immigrants from East Asia. Chapter 5, “Behaving Righteously,” examines the boycott of U.S. products in China in 1905 and 1906 and the president’s failure to secure reform of the U.S. government’s often brutal anti- Chinese immigration policies. For once,
he enjoyed the backing of most of the northeastern elite and the business community. However, fierce opposition on the West Coast and among organized labor ensured the defeat of Roosevelt’s legislation in Congress, even as he successfully pressured Chinese officials to suppress the boycott movement. Chapter 6, “Foolish Offensiveness,” explores the ways in which prejudice on the West Coast complicated TR’s determination to maintain peaceful relations with Tokyo and to foster better treatment of Japanese residing in the United States. The coverage of sensationalist newspapers, such as William Randolph Hearst’s New York American and San Francisco Examiner , further exacerbated tensions.
Roosevelt’s influence upon foreign policy did not end in 1909, when William Howard Taft succeeded him as president. Chapter 7, “The Stern, Unflinching Performance of Duty,” discusses the central role TR played in debates over participation in World War I, in many ways the most complicated episode of his career. On one hand, Roosevelt’s fierce and, for the first few years of the war, often lonely advocacy of military preparedness and patriotic loyalty—“Americanism” in Rooseveltian parlance—was vindicated when the United States entered the war in April 1917. Largely because of this leadership, he emerged as the favorite for the Republican nomination in 1920. On the other hand, this was, in some respects, the darkest period in TR’s public life and left a permanent stain on his legacy. He resorted all too often to inflammatory rhetoric about his political opponents, foremost among them President Woodrow Wilson. This tendency to extremism—which he mostly avoided while in the White House—limited his political effectiveness and contributed to the persecution of many innocent Americans who opposed the war. It also led to the alienation of a majority of German-Americans, millions of whom were torn between affection for their ancestral homeland and their sense of loyalty to the United States.
In spite of his stumbles during World War I, TR’s reputation as one of the most adept statesmen in U.S. history is secure.18 But the extent of his achievements, and the manner in which he secured them, can only be appreciated by seeing the foundation of his statecraft as a sophisticated grasp of how domestic politics, public opinion, and international affairs were connected—an understanding that long predated his ascension to the White House.
The Education of TR
Politics and Foreign Policy, 1882– 1903
Theodore Roosevelt was the most gifted politician of his era, but it took years before he concluded that his future would be in the electoral arena. For much of his youth he aspired to the life of a scientist. When the attraction of that profession faded, during his time at Harvard College, he began to consider a career in public service. Young men of his class and education who were interested in such work tended, then as now, to gravitate toward the law. Roosevelt duly enrolled at Columbia College Law School, in New York City, in the autumn of 1880. However, while he participated in class discussions with relish, he quickly discovered that he was uncomfortable with the discipline of legal reasoning. He was much more interested in how to use the law to promote “justice.” In short, he later wrote, the study of law did nothing to excite the sense of idealism he believed should infuse public service.1
Ironically, for a wealthy, cosmopolitan college graduate, Roosevelt found more suitable surroundings in the company of the working-class men who frequented his local political ward, the Twenty-First District Republican Association. While Roosevelt’s presence at Morton Hall, as the building was known, was initially as uncomfortable for him as it was for the other attendees, his participation in the bimonthly meetings gradually ceased to provoke comment. In time his passionate, if often naive, contributions caught the eye of an Irish-American political operative by the name of Joe Murray. Murray thought that TR, with his respected family name, zest for reform, and raw charisma would make him a much better candidate for the state assembly than the incumbent, who was a reliable cog in the Republican machine. Given a backlash in the autumn of 1881 against politics as usual, Roosevelt’s prospects appeared particularly promising. After a brief, but not particularly convincing, bout of
protesting that he did not want the nomination, Roosevelt accepted it and easily won the election in November.2
Thus, in January 1882, twenty-three-year-old Theodore Roosevelt began his political career as a New York state assemblyman. He did so with a distinctive, somewhat ambivalent, attitude. His family and friends considered politics to be a “low” profession, and Roosevelt refused to admit that he was a full-time politician. He would occasionally, over the course of his life, turn his attention to other endeavors such as writing history or ranching and, on more than one occasion, declared that his political career was finished. However,
Figure 1.1 New York State Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt in 1884. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
politics was more than a profession for TR; it was a calling and one for which he was strikingly well suited. He was as ambitious as he was talented, and his idealism, though it would be questioned many times over the years, never waned. Success in the political arena buoyed him as nothing else, and defeat left him in despair.3 TR’s ambitions and achievements in electoral politics were the reason that he would eventually leave a lasting mark on U.S. foreign policy, and they always played a role—sometimes a crucial one—in shaping his diplomacy. Therefore, the lessons TR learned in the formative years of his political career reveal the origins of his statecraft.
The Political Education of TR
Roosevelt absorbed two overarching lessons during the first two decades of his career that would shape his thinking long term. The first skill he cultivated was the ability to garner publicity for himself and his agenda. While this could be accomplished in a number of ways, the most important venue for ambitious politicians to catch the attention of the public during TR’s era was the daily newspaper. In the final decades of the nineteenth century, as circulation numbers increased, newspaper publishing became a lucrative business, with fierce competition for readership, especially in markets such as New York City. One consequence was a greater emphasis on fact-checking and objective reporting, though of course many publications retained a political slant. Intelligent, ambitious, and educated young men—increasingly with university degrees—began to fill the ranks of reporters at the leading dailies. Some newspapers also began to attract a significant national readership. This contributed to a process that began during the mid-nineteenth century, in which a revolution in communications facilitated the emergence of a national public sentiment. Progressive political ideology, with its commitment to accountability and public participation in politics, also contributed to the evolution in the nature of public opinion.4
Roosevelt was perhaps the first politician of his era to take full advantage of these changes.5 He viewed favorable newspaper coverage as indispensable to his cause. It bolstered his political standing and encouraged others to embrace his policy goals. Perhaps the earliest technique he used to attract newspaper coverage was the launching of dramatic investigations, in particular those that appeared to strike a blow against corrupt individuals or organizations on behalf of the public. For instance, in 1883 Assemblyman Roosevelt introduced a resolution calling for an investigation into allegations of corruption in regard to the sale of the Manhattan Elevated Railway. His resolution named a
justice of the state supreme court, T. R. Westbrook, State Attorney General Hamilton Ward, and a wealthy financier, Jay Gould. This resolution, and the tenacity with which Roosevelt sought to implement it, grabbed headlines in New York City and across the state and forced the normally sluggish legislature to consider impeaching Westbrook and Ward. Even though a last-minute flurry of bribery turned the vote against him, TR was making a name for himself as the “Cyclone Assemblyman,” and observers were beginning to predict that he would achieve greatness.6
Similarly, as president of the board of police commissioners in New York City in the mid-1890s, he staged dramatic nighttime raids, with journalists in tow, in order to highlight his crusade to expunge malfeasance among rank- and-file policemen. He also used newspaper coverage, as a civil service commissioner in Washington, DC, between 1888 and 1895, to encourage first Republicans, under President Benjamin Harrison, and later Democrats, under President Grover Cleveland, to implement reforms. These were designed to reduce corruption by requiring that appointments to the civil service be based on merit, instead of patronage. Journalists and editors were tickled, in particular, by the audacious ploy he used to prod Harrison into action: he investigated the postmaster of Harrison’s hometown of Indianapolis, William Wallace, who was, not coincidentally, a close friend of the president.7
Investigating the high and mighty was one way to catch the attention of newspapers and hence the public; another was the use of vivid rhetoric. TR early on understood the importance of infusing speeches with striking language and memorable phrases. In the midst of the battle over the Manhattan Elevated Railway, for instance, he warned his colleagues, “You cannot by your votes clear [Westbrook] . . . you cannot cleanse the leper. Beware lest you taint yourself with his leprosy.”8 Using what one historian has called the “rhetoric of militant decency,” TR developed a knack for framing issues in clear terms of right and wrong. He realized that some, particularly in the eastern elite, dismissed this predilection for moralizing as “preaching”—even his friend Elihu Root once mocked his “discovery of the Ten Commandments”—but TR found the “bully pulpit” to be a valuable tool for establishing a rapport with voters. Indeed, he consciously embraced the term “preaching” to describe his style of moralistic leadership. This was particularly appropriate for an era in which public discourse was still essentially Victorian in its style and politicians tended to employ the language of righteousness.9
Still, publicity stunts could be staged only infrequently and public speeches would reach only a fraction of the population. In order to ensure
regular, favorable coverage, he would need to develop reliable contacts in the press. This was not an easy process, and TR does not appear to have begun to master it until the early to mid-1890s. As was often the case, there was more than mere calculation at work in his thinking. Roosevelt developed a fascination with journalists and felt a kinship with many of the idealistic, ambitious men who covered him. For instance, when the reporter Jacob Riis published his seminal book on the horrors of tenement life, How the Other Half Lives: Studies among the Tenements of New York, Roosevelt left Riis a heartfelt note: “I have read your book, and I have come to help.”10
The fact that Roosevelt shared the idealism of these men and was in a position to attempt reforms was incredibly attractive. In a flattering piece written just in time for the 1898 New York gubernatorial race, Ray Stannard Baker, who would soon emerge as one of the nation’s foremost muckraking journalists, wrote, “His friends know that if there is work to do, in low places or high, and he is called upon to do it, he will do it with earnestness, energy, and honesty of purpose, and with the fearless patriotism of a tried American soldier.” Or, as William Allen White, another influential journalist and a lifelong friend of Roosevelt, put it, “He poured into my heart such visions, such ideals, such hopes, such a new attitude toward life and patriotism and the meaning of things, as I had never dreamed men had.” At the same time, by earning the trust of men such as Riis, Baker, and White, Roosevelt could influence their coverage. One reporter who was not in his inner circle observed, “There was always a group of news writers, whom we called the ‘fair-haired,’ who had his confidence and profiting by that confidence were ready to lend themselves in a large sense to any cause which he might champion.”11
Perhaps the foremost example of such men was Joseph Bucklin Bishop, who met TR during his tenure as president of the board of police commissioners. Bishop, an editor for the Evening Post, left the newspaper in 1900 because of its frequent criticism of Roosevelt. Bishop’s new home, the Commercial Advertiser in New York, became perhaps the staunchest supporter of TR after he entered the White House. “Naturally I am selfishly interested in having you in the biggest editorial position that you can be in!” TR wrote to Bishop in 1903. “Nobody but you can write editorials containing just exactly what I should like to have said.”12 Bishop also benefited from this relationship. TR’s White House regularly fed him inside information, and Bishop was appointed executive secretary of the Isthmian Canal Commission in Washington, DC, in 1905.13
Scoops and patronage were not the only tools at Roosevelt’s disposal. He never spoke to journalists on the record, though he allowed them to
paraphrase his words without attribution.14 He did not permit quotations because he wanted to maintain control of his message and image. As he informed one correspondent, he preferred to have his words reach the public in “an article or speech at first hand by myself, where I would be responsible for everything I said.”15 Anyone who disregarded these rules would be sharply reprimanded or even accused of falsification. This could lead to inclusion in the so-called Ananias Club, which meant banishment from the White House. Roosevelt told one hapless reporter who had relayed comments intended only for “private use” that the alleged “interview is a fabrication plain and simple.”16
The care TR took in his relationship with the press was due, in large part, to the difficult lessons he learned as a public official in the often brutal world of New York City political reporting. He had come to distrust, in particular, Democratic-leaning newspapers such as Joseph Pulitzer’s The World and—after its purchase by William Randolph Hearst in 1895—the New York Journal (which was renamed the New York American in 1901). The World had criticized Roosevelt’s decision to break with other reformers and to endorse the Republican candidate for president, James Blaine, in 1884. The World and
Figure 1.2 Theodore Roosevelt with reporters at his home, Sagamore Hill, in 1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
the Journal had also faulted TR when, as president of the board of police commissioners in 1895, he had decided to strictly enforce the law against the sale of alcohol on Sundays. Certainly, such criticism was nothing new to an experienced politician such as Roosevelt. What set The World and the Journal apart from other Democratic newspapers was their sensationalism, and what he saw as their willingness to distort facts in order to boost sales. During his tenure as assistant secretary of the navy, TR advised a naval officer, “You ought to be very careful about having any representative of either the World or the Journal aboard” your ship, as they would “try in every way to discredit the Navy by fake stories. What they want is something sensational.” In addition to his distrust of those newspapers’ style, TR personally loathed William Randolph Hearst, whom he saw as an unscrupulous demagogue and whom he blamed for printing a poem, in early 1900, that seemed to predict William McKinley’s assassination.17
By the time he moved into the governor’s mansion in Albany in 1899, TR oversaw a sophisticated press operation. It was not coincidental that this was the period during which he first began seriously to contemplate running for president. The process of building a national reputation included expanding his network beyond the New York–based reporters whom he had been cultivating for almost two decades. One of the first men Roosevelt targeted was Irish-American humorist Finley Peter Dunne. Dunne’s most beloved character was the fictional Mr. Dooley, a bartender in Chicago whose thick brogue served as a vehicle for some of the most effective satire of the era. TR first contacted Dunne after Mr. Dooley drily noted that his self-publicizing memoir, about leading a regiment of volunteers in the Spanish-American War, The Rough Riders, might more aptly be named, “Alone in Cubia.” Tickled by Dunne’s wit, and probably sensing an opportunity to convert a potentially troublesome critic into an ally, Roosevelt sent Dunne a cheerful note in which he confessed that his family and friends were “delighted” with Mr. Dooley’s assessment. He insisted that Dunne visit Albany, as he had “long wanted the chance of making your acquaintance.”18
After Roosevelt became president in September 1901, following the assassination of William McKinley, his relationship with the Washington press largely reflected the lessons he had learned in Albany. TR also implemented and expanded a number of practices that had been instituted by McKinley. The former congressman from Ohio had built a relationship with the press corps that surpassed that of any of his predecessors. The White House beat was then a new phenomenon, and McKinley used it to his advantage. For the first time, correspondents were given daily briefings by the president’s staff
and encouraged to contact him and the members of his cabinet for information. They were also given a permanent space in the White House from which to work. McKinley’s second secretary, George Cortelyou, proved to be such a skilled manager of the Fourth Estate that Roosevelt kept him on staff, along with his own secretary from Albany, William Loeb, until 1903, and subsequently named him to a cabinet position.19
In addition to nurturing his relationship with the press at home, Roosevelt was the first president to invest substantial time in shaping foreign media coverage. Most of his efforts in this regard focused on Britain. Foremost among
Figure 1.3 William Randolph Hearst, approximately 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
