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Great Power Rising: Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy
 0190859954, 9780190859954

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Great Power Rising

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Great Power Rising Theodore Roosevelt and the Politics of U.S. Foreign Policy

z JOHN M. THOMPSON

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1 Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries. Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press 198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America. © Oxford University Press 2019 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press, or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above. You must not circulate this work in any other form and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer. 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. Classification: LCC E756 (ebook) | LCC E756 .T49 2019 (print) | DDC 973.91/​1092—​dc23 LC record available at https://​lccn.loc.gov/​2018027025 1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2 Printed by Sheridan Books, Inc., United States of America

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For Katka

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Contents

Acknowledgments Introduction

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1. The Education of TR: Politics and Foreign Policy, 1882–​1903

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2. A Subject of Such Weight: The Politics of European Interventions in Latin America, 1901–​1903

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3. Panic-​Struck Senators, Businessmen, and Everybody Else: Colombia, Panama, and the Canal Route, 1902–​1904

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4. Triumphs and Setbacks: The Roosevelt Corollary, the 1904 Election, and the Dominican Intervention

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5. Behaving Righteously: Relations with China, 1904–​1906

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6. Foolish Offensiveness: Relations with Japan, 1905–​1909

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7. The Stern, Unflinching Performance of Duty: TR and World War I, 1909–​1919

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Conclusion

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Notes

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Bibliography

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Index

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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.

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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.

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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

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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

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Introduction

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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.

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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

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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 opinion-​ polling 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

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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

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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 rec­ ord.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 behind-​ the-​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

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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,

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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.

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The Education of TR Politics and Foreign Policy, 1882–​1 903

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

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The Education of TR

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Figure 1.1  New York State Assemblyman Theodore Roosevelt in 1884. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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,

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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

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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 serv­ ice 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

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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

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Figure  1.2  Theodore Roosevelt with reporters at his home, Sagamore Hill, in 1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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

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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

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Figure  1.3  William Randolph Hearst, approximately 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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

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the journalists he targeted was John St. Loe Strachey, editor and proprietor of The Spectator, a conservative weekly in London that was influential with members of the elite on both sides of the Atlantic. John Hay, the secretary of state he had inherited from McKinley, had been in frequent contact with Strachey in an ongoing, albeit ad hoc, effort to influence The Spectator’s reporting. TR soon took over the correspondence and was much more aggressive than Hay. He wrote to Strachey in early October 1901, asking whether the Englishman could “not get over here . . . sometime in the not too distant future? I should like to have you as my guest at the White House and to let you see for yourself all the inner workings of American national politics.” TR used his relationship with Strachey to influence The Spectator’s discussion of specific policies. Displeased with the coverage of the Alaskan boundary dispute with Canada, for instance, he implored Strachey to visit Washington in mid-​1902 so that the two of them could “go over” the matter thoroughly. He even advised Strachey as to the proper way to write critically about the United States, with an eye to fostering good relations between the two nations. “All I ask is that . . . every true friend of America should . . . speak clearly, though with as little unpleasantness as may be, about America’s faults,” TR wrote in 1904. “If I were an editor instead of a public man, in writing about England this is the tone I should assume.”20 Even as TR fine-​tuned the art of attracting publicity, he was absorbing a second crucial lesson about public life: he would only be able to achieve his goals as a loyal member of the Republican Party. The idealism and passion with which TR approached politics generally played well with the public, but these traits also frequently engendered tension in his relationship with power brokers in the Republican Party, especially the boss in New  York, Senator Thomas C. Platt. Roosevelt’s willingness to consider policy questions from an objective, as well as political, point of view won him the respect of many reformers, but it also generated suspicion among party insiders.21 The truth, however, was that Roosevelt demonstrated early in his career where his loyalties resided. When push came to shove, he would side with the party. Roosevelt’s moment of truth came in the election of 1884, when James G. Blaine, widely suspected of corruption, won the Republican nomination for president. Roosevelt, an influential delegate at the national convention in Chicago, was tempted to abandon Blaine in favor of the Democratic nominee, Grover Cleveland, whose political morals remained unquestioned. Even though other reformist Republicans, such as Edwin L. Godkin, did just that, Roosevelt, after a bout of soul searching, decided to support Blaine. The reasons for this decision were complicated and will never be fully known, but

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a key factor was probably the realization that if he wished to make a career in politics, then he would need the support of a party organization. As Henry Cabot Lodge—​who also reluctantly supported Blaine at the convention—​ once wrote in his journal, “Things political are only to be brought about by . . . organized parties where you act together because you agree in the main and submit to much that you do not like in order to advance larger principles of a greater importance.”22 Unlike TR, many of the well-​educated men from the Northeast, such as Godkin, never returned to the fold and thereafter acted as political independents. These men, who aspired to the reformist ideals of the pre–​ Civil War Republican Party, had become disenchanted with the corruption and machine politics of the Grant administration. When they abandoned the party, in 1884, they were thereafter often referred to as mugwumps. Godkin, a Protestant emigrant from Ireland who was one of the most influential and pugnacious editors of his era, never forgave Roosevelt for his decision. Thereafter, the influential publications which Godkin edited, The Nation and the Evening Post of New York, generally treated TR with suspicion and even hostility. Roosevelt responded in kind and reserved some of his harshest criticism for figures such as Godkin, whom he characterized as being afflicted with “intellectual strabismus.”23 Because he had to work with many independents who often wielded considerable influence, he tried to avoid alienating them and reserved his more colorful epithets for private correspondence with confidantes such as Lodge. However, Roosevelt’s anger and resentment toward mugwumps and their political cousins, the anti-​imperialists—​often one and the same—​remained a powerful influence throughout his career. After 1884, Roosevelt accepted his position as a stalwart member of the Republican Party—​though he remained cognizant of his party’s many shortcomings and would later leave it for a few years—​and his professional ambitions were maintained within that framework. Only by entering party politics, he believed, and by taking a stand, could one make a difference. Those who held themselves above politics and politicians earned his disdain. Mugwumps were especially pernicious, he felt, because they were so influential among members of the elite in New York and Washington. They discouraged the type of regular party work that he believed essential to healthy democratic governance. He wrote in 1894, “Journals that pride themselves upon being independent in politics, and the organs of cultivated men . . . do great harm by accustoming good citizens to see their public men, good and bad, assailed indiscriminately as scoundrels.”24

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Perhaps the most troubling aspect of the mugwump worldview, from TR’s perspective, was its ambivalence about national greatness. At the core of Roosevelt’s approach to politics was an intense love of country and a conviction that such an attitude was essential if the United States was to surmount the many domestic and foreign challenges it faced. Roosevelt’s nationalism, or “Americanism” as he often called it, was the “one quality” that his countrymen “must bring to the solution of every problem.”25 The emphasis he placed upon national greatness was partly a product of the era in which he lived and the environment in which he worked and wrote. The Civil War was a living memory for his family—​TR was six years old when it ended—​and his father’s decision to send a replacement rather than serve in the Union army left him with a permanent sense of shame.26 Like his friend Henry Cabot Lodge, he likely used nationalist rhetoric to initially counter the impression that a wealthy, Harvard-​educated man, who was dubbed Oscar Wilde by his peers in the New York assembly, would not be able to handle the rough and tumble of politics.27 Roosevelt’s understanding of history influenced the nature of his nationalism. The foremost lesson that he drew from the historical record was that the United States, by virtue of its political institutions and the character of its people, was “that one among all the nations of the earth which holds in its hands the fate of the coming years.”28 The only concept that he consistently advocated in the realm of national defense and foreign policy prior to the mid-​1890s—​the need for naval expansion—​reflected, in particular, the research for his first book, The Naval War of 1812, which was published in 1882. The most important figure in Roosevelt’s professional life was also a staunch nationalist and an early and passionate advocate of naval expansion. TR met Henry Cabot Lodge in 1884, when they served as delegates in Chicago at the Republican national convention. Both hoped to engineer the nomination of George F.  Edmunds, a senator from Vermont favored by reformers. Though they failed, something much more valuable emerged from the episode.29 As men with similar backgrounds, educations, political worldviews, and professional ambitions, they would probably have formed a working relationship regardless of any personal warmth. However, they also complemented one another; Lodge was older and more intellectually sophisticated at this point—​he had earned one of the first American doctorates in history—​whereas Roosevelt was more dynamic and charismatic. Being natural political allies and compatible, they quickly developed a tight bond. Lodge was, TR wrote, his “closest friend, personally, politically, and in every

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Figure  1.4 Henry Cabot Lodge, approximately 1898. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

other way, and occupied toward” him “a relation that no other man has ever occupied or ever will occupy.”30 In the early years, the older Lodge probably influenced TR more than vice versa, a dynamic that was largely reversed after TR became president. One of the most astute observers of the relationship, William Widenor, has concluded, “Lodge guided Roosevelt’s career from the start.” On several occasions he intervened to help secure for TR, or to persuade him to accept, political offices. This included the position of assistant secretary of the navy in 1897, the governorship in New York in 1898, and, most crucially, the Republican nomination for vice president in 1900. Lodge encouraged his friend to think expansively about his potential. “I do not say that you are to be President tomorrow,” he counseled TR in 1895. “I do not say it will be—​I am sure that it may and can be.” The senator from Massachusetts was perhaps the first to see in TR the necessary qualities for success in the presidency:  enormous political aptitude, a staunch sense of nationalism, a desire to lead the country to a more active role in international politics,

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and an ability to “impress the popular imagination.” Throughout his career, Lodge was often the first person that TR turned to for counsel on crucial political questions.31 Lodge also probably shaped TR’s thinking about foreign policy, at least in the initial years of their relationship. TR’s nationalism and his devotion to naval strength developed independently, but Lodge likely preceded his friend in assembling these ideas into a broader intellectual framework. Already in 1884, Lodge was connecting the need for a larger navy with the ability to conduct a more vigorous foreign policy, a link TR had yet to make.32 TR seemed to later acknowledge Lodge’s influence, when he wrote after leaving the White House that Lodge “was of all our public men the man who had made the closest and wisest study of our foreign relations.”33 By the early 1890s, there was scarcely any difference in the thinking of Lodge and TR about foreign policy.34 In addition to sharing an unshakeable loyalty to the Republican Party, Lodge and TR were staunch partisans. Roosevelt considered the Democratic Party to be at least as pernicious an influence as mugwumps. His intense partisanship was partially a product of his sense of identity as a Republican: Democrats were the opposition and hence, almost by definition, the source of many ills. Like many Republicans, he held the Democratic Party in contempt for the role it played in the Civil War. He argued in one early campaign speech, “It is the party that tried to destroy the Union, that supported slavery,” and “that has committed about every sin it was capable of committing for the last twenty-​five years.”35 Roosevelt’s criticism was not limited to southerners; he also despised northern antiwar Democrats, “the dough-​face and the copperhead, who had all the will, but who fortunately utterly lacked the courage, to be traitors.”36 He viewed the Republican Party, as the heirs to the Federalists and Whigs, as the only party capable of promoting the national interest. Similarly, Lodge argued that the Democratic Party’s bases in the South and in northern cities might produce “reaction,” but never “sound legislation and good administration.”37 TR’s ample contact with Democrats in New York state politics increased his dislike of the party. He did not much care for either wing of the state organ­ ization. He remarked wryly in one early campaign speech, he sympathized with Tammany Hall in “its thorough detestation of the regular Democracy” and he agreed with “the regular Democracy, too, in the way in which it looks upon Tammany Hall.”38 Democratic newspapers in New York City were another source of his disdain for the party. He regularly complained that the coverage of the World, the Herald, and the Journal, three of the city’s most

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important Democratic dailies, was particularly pernicious. Not coincidentally, they would be frequent critics throughout his career.39 To Roosevelt’s credit, he was not averse to praising Democrats whom he considered honest public servants, such as Grover Cleveland, and he admired the courage of southerners who fought as soldiers in the Civil War.40 Yet, even in the case of Cleveland, he considered the president to be severely constrained in what he could accomplish by the nature of his party.41 He wrote during Cleveland’s first term that while the president had “done as well as his party would let him . . . his numerous shortcomings and failures simply show that under the most favorable circumstances the Democratic Party . . . is not fit to be entrusted with the care of the National Government.”42 As he developed a more prominent public profile, TR became more careful when discussing his feelings about the Democratic Party, in the interest of maintaining a working relationship with his opponents. In private, however, he remained a fervent partisan. By the time he was elected governor of New York in 1898 it was clear that, while Roosevelt retained a strong independent streak and was drawn to reformist ideas in a wide range of areas, including labor, housing, education, conservation, and administrative reform, he was first and foremost a pragmatist. Albert Shaw, editor of the influential reformist journal Review of Reviews, later wrote, “In the ideals of good government, Mr. Roosevelt stood with the reformers; in the methods to be pursued, he took leaves from the book of the politicians.”43 In other words, while idealism was a laudable characteristic in a politician, it had little value when not combined with an ability to differentiate between the achievable and the utopian, and an ability to retain the support of one’s party. As the most careful student of his governorship observes, had TR not known how to pick his battles, he would have won more praise from independent voices such as the Evening Post, “But he would have secured few of the reforms he sought.”44

The Politics of Foreign Policy, 1892–​1903 After the early 1890s, Roosevelt began to pay closer attention to foreign policy. In part, this reflected his expanding political ambitions and intellectual horizons and his status as assistant secretary of the navy in 1897–​1898, vice president in 1900–​1901, and president after September 1901. It also highlighted his recognition that the United States had developed the capacity to play a more important role in international politics. From the mid-​1890s, TR added to his long-​standing advocacy of naval expansion an interest in,

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and relatively sophisticated understanding of, the role of power in international politics. He paid special attention to the balances of power in Europe and East Asia and studied the role that great power politics would play in the expansion of U.S. influence. In particular—​influenced by writers such as Alfred Thayer Mahan and Brooks Adams—​he came to believe that the future of China would be vital to U.S. economic and strategic interests. Along with figures such as Mahan, a naval officer and public intellectual, and Lodge, he stressed the need to acquire strategic territory in the Caribbean and Pacific—​ notably Cuba and Hawaii—​and the construction of a canal in the isthmus of Central America to allow the navy to move quickly between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Britain, which viewed growing U.S. influence as preferable to the Russian or German alternatives, supported or at least acceded to all of these aims. This acquiescence on Britain’s part was an important factor in the slow but steady strengthening of Anglo-​American relations during TR’s career. Roosevelt concluded that Germany and Japan were most likely to oppose these goals, which could lead to war with either.45 Roosevelt’s approach to foreign policy reflected a conception of world history that led him to see the responsibilities of the United States as extending beyond the nation’s strategic interests. These ideas can be found, most notably, in his multivolume The Winning of the West, published between 1889 and 1896. He believed that the United States had achieved a higher level of civilization with its culture and political system than peoples in Latin America, Africa, and most of Asia, which gave it the right to spread its values and institutions abroad. Along with that right came a moral duty to uplift what were widely seen as less advanced peoples. However, imperialism was not intended to benefit only, or even primarily, foreigners. TR believed it was vital that the United States follow other great powers in acquiring colonial possessions in order to maintain the standard of U.S. hardiness. Increasing prosperity and rising education levels, he feared—​again with members of the northeastern elite, such as the mugwumps, foremost in mind—​threatened to sap “the iron quality which made our forefathers and predecessors fit to do the deeds they did.” In other words, Roosevelt believed it was only through the difficult and often violent process of forcing less advanced peoples to become more civilized that American men could maintain the characteristics necessary to tackle the challenges facing the nation.46 Even as he began to develop an ambitious set of goals for expanding U.S. influence, Roosevelt’s foreign policy agenda was connected to what was still his primary focus: garnering and maintaining political influence for himself and his party.47 For Roosevelt, foreign policy did not become a separate field

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of operation upon which politics and public opinion impinged, as a number of historians have suggested. Rather, it was incorporated into, and became a chief area of interest in, his political landscape, and these two spheres cannot be seen as fully or even partially separate. He treated challenges in international politics as he did any other policy question: his thinking and actions were governed by a combination of his own preferences and the push and pull of politics, and he applied many of the same skills and techniques he had been developing over the course of his career. He persuaded when he could, yielded when he could not, and adjusted or even fundamentally reworked policies to accommodate external and internal requirements. These internal requirements were dictated, in large part, by the nature of the U.S. political system and TR’s sense of identity as a professional Republican politician. He recognized that partisanship played an important role in shaping the course of public debates and that foreign policy offered another means for swaying voters prior to elections. In 1902 and 1903, for instance, he sanctioned protests to the Romanian and Russian governments that decried the poor treatment of Jews in those countries.48 TR did not expect the missives to have any substantial effect abroad. Rather, he and his advisers viewed them as a tactic for courting Jewish voters, especially in New  York City. Later, when evaluating domestic and foreign policy achievements to emphasize prior to the 1904 election, he placed his actions on behalf of Jews in Romania and Russia at the top of the list. This turned out to be an astute decision, as the press reported—​on the eve of the election, no less—​that the government in St. Petersburg had agreed to recognize the passports of U.S. Jews traveling in Russia.49 Similarly, after Ion Perdicaris, who was initially thought to be a U.S. citizen, was kidnapped by the sharif Raisuli and held for ransom in Morocco, the president ordered the Department of State to send a telegram to the consul general in Tangier that demanded, melodramatically, “Perdicaris alive or Raisuli dead.” This telegram was read to the Republican National Convention in Chicago, in June 1904, to rapturous applause. That Perdicaris was not, in fact, a U.S. citizen or that the ransom had already been arranged mattered little. What counted was that the incident furnished another opportunity to burnish Roosevelt’s credentials as commander in chief.50 TR and his allies were quick to criticize Democrats when they perceived a potential vulnerability. In 1895, as Republicans prepared for the coming election, Henry Cabot Lodge published in The Forum a scathing indictment of president Grover Cleveland’s “humiliating” foreign policy, which, he argued, had been too focused on trade and economics and shown “altogether too

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Figure  1.5  Judge cartoon, approximately 1904, depicting TR’s efforts on behalf of Russian Jews. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

little . . . Americanism” in pursuing naval and territorial expansion.51 During the campaign of 1900, as the Republican vice presidential nominee, TR repeatedly accused the Democratic nominee, William Jennings Bryan—​who had expressed unease about the counterinsurgency campaign in the Philippines—​ of lacking sufficient love of country. “Our soldiers who are now facing death in the Philippines are forced to recognize in the Bryanistic Democracy their most dangerous foe,” he told a crowd in Detroit, and the “bullets that slay our men in Luzon are inspired by the denouncers of America here.”52 Though he preferred, like all politicians, to be on the offensive, it was also necessary, at times, to play defense. TR developed several successful strategies for such situations. One frequent ploy was to issue appeals to rise above partisanship. Prior to the election of 1892, for instance, in an essay in The Independent, he sought to rebut Democratic attacks on the foreign policy of the Republican president, Benjamin Harrison, by decrying “party divisions.” He declared piously, “The dealings of the United States with foreign powers should be considered from no partisan standpoint.” A related approach was implicitly to concede the success of the other side’s policy and to characterize it as something that both parties supported rather than as an initiative of the Democrats. Prior to the election in 1896, he portrayed the administration’s popular stance during the first Venezuela crisis—​when president Grover

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Cleveland and his secretary of state, Richard Olney, invoked the Monroe Doctrine in demanding that the British agree to submit to arbitration a border dispute with Venezuela—​as a bipartisan position formulated by the “national executive and national legislature” and for which Henry Cabot Lodge “took the lead in the Senate.”53 Often the most effective approach, which TR used frequently, was to accuse his opponents of lacking patriotism, or even of giving aid and comfort to the enemy. During the first half of 1902, for instance, Democrats and anti-​imperialists criticized the administration with increasing vehemence for atrocities allegedly committed by U.S. soldiers while battling Filipino insurgents. In response, the administration and its allies mounted a counterattack, mainly via a series of newspaper editorials and speeches. They emphasized the savagery of the enemy, the hardships endured by brave troops and the infrequency of any infractions, and the contention that those who failed to give unstinting support to brave American boys serving overseas lacked sufficient love of country. This set of arguments seemed to resonate with many newspaper editors, members of Congress, and the public. As the New York Times remarked after a passionate speech by the president at Arlington Cemetery, “Words like these confirm the belief of the American people that the Administration’s purposes are right and its methods just.” Outgunned and outmaneuvered, critics largely abandoned the subject.54 Early in his career, Roosevelt recognized the need to safeguard the mantle of protector of the country’s honor. Republicans had sought to monopolize that particular asset since the end of the Civil War, and TR always passionately engaged in debates in which this was a theme. As anger swelled in the aftermath of the sinking of the Maine, on the eve of the Spanish-​American War in 1898, Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roosevelt warned Secretary of the Navy John Davis Long that there was “a very large body of public opinion to the effect that we some time ago reached the limit of forebearance [sic] in our conduct toward the Spaniards.” This “public opinion is already very restless,” he wrote, “and might easily be persuaded to turn hostile to the Administration.” It would be a political disaster, TR did not need to tell Long, if the public concluded that President McKinley was indifferent to the national honor on the question of Cuba.55 The phrase “public opinion” is one that appears frequently in TR’s correspondence. Many have portrayed public attitudes to foreign policy as a contest between a parochial strain of isolationism and indifference versus a prescient internationalism. This has allowed them to posit a stark contrast between TR—​the brilliant strategist who anticipated the country’s post–​World

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War II international role—​and the majority of Americans, who remained detached from geopolitical changes in Europe and East Asia, an outmoded position in an increasingly interconnected world.56 This dichotomy oversimplifies TR’s view of public sentiment and the nature of public sentiment while distorting a crucial element of his statecraft. For Roosevelt, an understanding of public opinion encompassed far more than just an assessment of whether a person or group of people supported a given policy. He certainly differentiated between Americans according to education level and ethnic background, as well as the various tendencies in attitudes toward foreign policy. But his conception of the public also included considerations of national character. Were Americans virile, honorable, and farsighted enough to enable the country to fulfill its destiny in the arena of international politics? While Roosevelt was largely optimistic about this, in his mind there was also reason for concern. Perhaps the most formidable hurdle to sound policymaking, from his perspective, was the influence of mugwumps and anti-​imperialists. Unfortunately, from TR’s point of view, the “perverse lunatics” who embraced the mugwump worldview had considerable power to shape the attitudes of the public, since they tended to be educated men who occupied positions of social and professional influence in places such as New York and Boston.57 At the heart of TR’s intellectual critique of the mugwump worldview was his belief that it was incompatible with an honorable foreign policy. He believed that diplomacy could only succeed when it combined the support of a patriotic citizenry and military strength with a desire for peace and a commitment to justice.58 He worried that the mugwumps and anti-​imperialists were eager for peace but unwilling to prepare for the possibility of war. Not only was this a sign of weakness—​it was tantamount to an invitation to attack. “No nation can achieve real greatness if its people are not both essentially moral and essentially manly,” TR opined during the first Venezuela Crisis. “It is an admirable thing to possess refinement and cultivation, but the price is too dear if they must be paid for at the cost of the rugged fighting qualities which make a man able to do a man’s work in the world.” He believed that “in a dispute with a foreign power,” they would not “stand up manfully” for the nation’s “honor and influence.”59 At the same time TR had, on the whole, a positive view of the broad mass of Americans, to whom he often referred affectionately, as the “plain people.”60 This calls into question the widespread assumption that he viewed public opinion primarily as a constraint on his freedom for maneuver.

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Roosevelt’s frustration with the public was usually directed toward specific groups, such as critics of the McKinley administration’s policy in the Philippines. In contrast most Americans were, in his view, generally inclined to support sound policies. They might be ignorant about the finer points of international politics, they might, at times, be misled by the arguments of mugwumps and Democrats, but generally they were guided by common sense and patriotism. This was especially true when strong, virtuous men led the way. Lincoln was the foremost example in this regard and served as a touchstone for TR throughout his career.61 This set of convictions was the product of an almost Jacksonian veneration of the U.S. form of government. Roosevelt believed it featured “the best constitution that the wit of man has ever devised” and “the best institutions that the ablest statesmen in the world have ever reduced to practice by law or by custom” and which produced “the greatest happiness of the greatest number.”62 His admiration for the Federalists was tempered only by his criticism of their “distrust of the people.”63 During his presidency and beyond, these ideas were crucial to his emerging Progressivism and, in particular, his belief in the need to respect public opinion. This reflected confidence that his countrymen would respond correctly if properly led, and that such leadership was imperative for the welfare of the country.64 He argued in a speech in 1911 that, in the United States, “public opinion rules.” It was “especially in the magazines and newspapers” where Americans learned “the facts” about “public and private questions.” Therefore, cultivating the press was not simply a matter of seeking publicity for himself and his agenda; it was an essential part of the democratic process. Newspapers and magazines played a vital role in allowing the public to participate in the governing process, by drawing conclusions about policies and politicians. Newspapers, in particular, also provided a useful tool by which public sentiment could be measured, if only indirectly and imperfectly.65 To be sure, by the time he was vice president, TR understood that shaping public opinion was no easy task. He wrote to Mahan in early 1901, regarding the desirability of more extensive Anglo-​American cooperation in China, that Americans were relatively uninformed about and uninterested in China and that while “something can be done by public men in leading the people,” they could not “lead them much further than public opinion has prepared the way.”66 However, he also believed that proper leadership could rally the public to his side, where it could serve as a vital counterbalance to the influence of Democrats, anti-​imperialists, and mugwumps. Such sentiment, if strong enough, could also be used to sway members of Congress who were

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undecided or opposed to his agenda. For example, in September 1902 he gave several speeches and embarked on a tour of the country in an attempt to mobilize support for a treaty of reciprocity with Cuba.67 Between the early 1890s and 1903, along with electoral politics and public opinion, TR also came to appreciate the importance of the various ethnic groups in the United States and the ways in which they complicated the conduct of foreign policy. This was particularly evident when it came to specific bilateral relationships. At the same time, skillful handling of these groups could also contribute to electoral success, as TR discovered in the episode with Romanian and Russian Jews. Before 1903, two nations played a particular role in Roosevelt’s understanding of the ethnic landscape. Achieving what diplomatic historian Bradford Perkins described as “the great rapprochement” between the United States and Britain was made more difficult by the fact that many Americans—​ especially those of Irish and German extraction—​strongly opposed the forging of closer Anglo-​American ties.68 Advocates of Anglo-​American cooperation knew they would face considerable resistance among some segments of the public and that any rapprochement would need to emerge slowly. Perhaps no one understood this better than John Hay. Originally from Illinois, Hay entered politics as a personal secretary to Abraham Lincoln. Several decades later, he served as ambassador to the Court of St. James and then secretary of state under President McKinley and TR. Hay was among the first officials in the United States to promote improved relations with Britain, though, like Roosevelt, he was careful to avoid any statements or actions that hinted at a formal alliance. Nevertheless, in spite of his Midwestern roots, Hay frequently faced charges that he was, for all intents and purposes, an Englishman. Democrats used his success as ambassador in London, his wealth—​he married the daughter of a tycoon from Ohio—​and his urbanity and literary talents—​he was class poet at Brown University and a gifted writer—​as evidence that he was insufficiently patriotic. He complained on one occasion that his critics “say I’m not an American because I don’t say ‘To hell with the Queen’ at every breath.”69 TR and Lodge understood this tactic well, as they themselves had often used anti-​British rhetoric as a way of reaffirming their nationalism and of scoring points with Irish, German, and—​after the onset of the Boer War in South Africa—​Dutch-​Americans. A delicate balancing act was required. Do too little and the gradual improvement in relations might wither before it could take root. However, as Roosevelt advised one Englishman during the heat of the presidential campaign in 1900, if he and McKinley were to “mar

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Figure 1.6  John Hay, approximately 1902. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

the work by haste or over effusiveness,” they risked provoking a backlash. Hence, TR and allies such as Lodge and Hay slowly but steadily campaigned on behalf of improved ties, asking that both sides offered criticism only in good faith and that all parties acknowledged “any service rendered by the other.” Disputes such as the one between the United States and Canada over the boundary of Alaska, which was settled by arbitration in 1903, were generally approached in this spirit.70 In the meantime, TR assisted his British partners in avoiding controversy when possible. He arranged for a British squadron to visit Newport instead of New York in 1905, so as to avoid Irish-​American demonstrations. He also

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gently urged his countrymen to embrace a more positive view of Britain. “This nation was founded by Englishmen, the Cavalier and the Puritan. Their tongue, law, and literature were an inheritance which all of us share and marked deep the lines along which we have developed,” he reminded a crowd at the Jamestown Exposition in 1907. “It was the men of English stock which did most in casting the mould into which our national character was formed.”71 Whereas Anglo-​American ties improved during TR’s career, the relationship with Germany worsened as each country came to see the other as a strategic competitor. TR accrued considerable experience with Germany and German-​Americans during his formative years. As a boy, he had enjoyed an extended stay with a German family in Dresden. As president of the board of police commissioners in 1895, his decision to strictly enforce the law against the sale of alcohol on the Sabbath reportedly led thirty thousand German-​ Americans—​who enjoyed their Sunday outings to the city’s beer gardens—​to vote for the Democratic Party.72 By the time he became president, TR had a deep appreciation for the strategic importance of the relationship with Germany and for the delicate task of cultivating the Deutschamerikaner vote at home. He demonstrated the value he placed upon this constituency in mid-​1902, when Berlin announced that it would give the District of Columbia a statue of Frederick the Great. As a rudimentary act of public diplomacy—​many saw Frederick as a friend of the cause during the Revolutionary War—​this should have been relatively uncontroversial. However, a series of editorials and a congressional resolution condemned the planned statue as a symbol of antirepublicanism. Normally, such rhetoric would have been dismissed as a bit of Jacksonian grandstanding and quickly forgotten. However, it assumed a more ominous tone amid reports that Admiral H.  C. Taylor, chief of the Bureau of Navigation, had predicted that the United States and Germany would go to war by 1907—​ when it was thought that the German fleet would reach a sufficient level of strength. The Washington Post noted that such views were essentially conventional wisdom in U.S. naval circles, as was the notion that Germany resented the Monroe Doctrine and hoped to acquire territory in Latin America.73 TR shared many of these concerns about Germany. In particular, he believed that the failure of the United States to expand its navy quickly enough had encouraged Berlin in its ambitions in Latin America. Nevertheless, he considered maintaining peaceful relations with Germany to be a crucial diplomatic goal.74 He also recognized that German-​ Americans were particularly sensitive to the state of U.S.-​German relations.

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The Illinois Staats-​Zeitung observed the following year that TR had one eye upon “the large German vote” as he sought to maintain cordial ties with Berlin. With such considerations in mind, TR accepted the statue of Frederick in the summer of 1902. The German-​born Richard Bartholdt, a Republican congressman from St. Louis, wrote in the New  Yorker Handelszeitung, “President Roosevelt has earned the thanks of German-​ Americans in particular.” 75 In spite of his knack for making such resonant gestures, the German conundrum dogged TR throughout his career. That Washington and Berlin frequently found themselves on opposing sides of international crises through the end of World War II was distressing, to put it mildly, for the large and powerful voting bloc of German-​Americans. The same could be said for politicians, such as Roosevelt, who coveted their support, but who also wanted to avoid looking weak when it came to defending the national interest. In fact, US-​German ties were arguably more complicated, from a domestic political standpoint, than any other bilateral relationship. It should have come as no surprise, then, that they were at the heart of the first significant foreign policy question TR faced as president. How should the increasingly powerful United States respond to European, and especially German, interventions in Latin America?

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A Subject of Such Weight The Politics of European Interventions in Latin America, 1901–​1 903

On October 29, 1902, the German chargé d’affaires in Washington, DC, Albert von Quadt, sent a striking report to Berlin. In it, he included several conclusions about the state of relations with the United States, with particular focus on the expedition that Germany was planning in order to collect debts in Venezuela. He expected Roosevelt to win the presidential election in 1904. He also advised that TR and other political insiders did not suspect Germany of posing a threat to the Monroe Doctrine, and that frequent reference in Congress and the navy to the “German danger” was intended to generate support for naval expansion, rather than representing an accurate reflection of thinking in these circles. Similarly, frequent stories written by journalists about the German threat were mainly a tactic to sell newspapers. He also judged that German-​Americans had become more “confident” in their status in society and might serve as a “useful factor” for the “old fatherland.” Hence, he concluded, Germany could pursue its objectives in Venezuela without engendering “mistrust” in “leading circles.”1 Von Quadt’s dispatch correctly identifies most of the elements that would shape US-​German relations in the coming months: the salience of the election; concern about the perceived German threat to the Monroe Doctrine among members of Congress, high-​level officers in the navy, and the press; and the sensitivity of German-​Americans to accusations of divided loyalty. Though Von Quadt’s missive is full of oversimplifications and predictions that did not come to pass (with the exception of TR’s victory), it underscores the extent to which domestic political factors shaped policy toward Germany during TR’s tenure and the difficulty German officials encountered in

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deciphering how this would affect bilateral relations. Hence, it is a useful starting point for understanding how the United States reacted to an attempt by Britain and Germany to forcibly collect debts from Venezuela in late 1902 and early 1903.

The Monroe Doctrine: Political and Strategic Considerations Throughout the nineteenth century, the Monroe Doctrine served as a powerful symbol of nationalism that politicians used to score points against their opponents. Theodore Roosevelt had demonstrated that he understood the highly political nature of the Doctrine during the first Venezuela Crisis in 1895–​1896. During that episode, he had treated the Monroe Doctrine as a cornerstone of the nation’s strategic position in the western hemisphere and a popular symbol that could be an asset for any ambitious politician. In his first two annual messages to Congress as president, TR called the Monroe Doctrine “the cardinal feature” of U.S. foreign policy. Nevertheless, before late 1902, Roosevelt believed that the United States needed to strike a balance between preventing European governments from expanding their influence in Latin America and allowing them to help keep order. This belief was partly pragmatic, as several of Europe’s great powers had long maintained extensive trade and strategic interests in the region. It was also a product of the president’s belief that the most advanced, or “civilized,” countries should cooperate to maintain stability and promote progress among less-​developed nations, many of whom he viewed as being “wholly unfit for self government.”2 Hence, as vice president, he informed the German diplomat, Hermann Speck von Sternburg, “If any South American State misbehaves toward any European country, let the European country spank it,” and in his first annual message to Congress he declared that the Monroe Doctrine did not “guarantee” any nation in the western hemisphere “against punishment if it misconducts itself.” Administration officials during the first year of Roosevelt’s presidency offered no objection to a series of European interventions in the Caribbean that did not appear to threaten the Monroe Doctrine:  in Guatemala in September 1901 and April 1902; in Venezuela in June and September 1902; and in Haiti in September 1902.3 To be sure, Roosevelt and his advisers closely followed the course of these expeditions. However, they differentiated between those undertaken by friendly nations and those considered a threat to U.S. interests. British incursions, while hardly encouraged, caused little genuine alarm (the first

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Venezuela crisis notwithstanding). Germany occupied a different category in the thinking of most policymakers. There was considerable concern that Berlin hoped to acquire territory in Latin America, a goal that was seen as a potential threat to the emerging strategic supremacy of the United States in the region, especially when it came to one of the administration’s foremost priorities:  constructing a U.S.-​controlled canal in the isthmus of Central America. As a result, officials sought to discourage German ambitions. In April 1901, for instance, in response to reports that Germany might have designs on the Venezuelan island of Margarita, Secretary of State John Hay instructed the chargé d’affaires in Berlin to warn that the United States would object to any such plans. Officials also took steps to prepare for any potential conflict. In late 1901, when Berlin informed the United States of plans to collect debts from Venezuela and admitted that a temporary occupation might be necessary, the U.S. Navy, with Roosevelt’s blessing, arranged to hold a series of fleet maneuvers in the region in late 1902 as a show of strength.4 TR shared many of these concerns about Germany. In particular, he believed that the failure to expand the navy quickly enough had encouraged Berlin in its ambitions in Latin America. Nevertheless, he considered maintaining peaceful relations to be a priority. He wrote to Henry Cabot Lodge, in mid-​1901, that he was “peculiarly anxious” to “keep on friendly relations with Germany.” Similarly, Roosevelt wrote to Sternburg, who was a friend, that he “earnestly desire[d]‌to have Germany and the United States work hand in hand . . . not only in China, but in South America as well.”5 The importance he place upon U.S.-​German ties was bolstered by his concern that any tension would alienate the German-​American voters who he hoped would support his bid to retain the presidency in 1904. Prior to the blockade of Venezuela, the president had yet to decide how to reconcile these contradictory objectives and threat perceptions. However, he recognized that his current policy of asserting U.S. hegemony in Latin America, while at the same time allowing European interventions to help police it, was problematic. He wrote to Edward Everett Hale in late 1901, “In South America, it, is positively difficult to know just how far it is best to leave the nations alone and how far there must be interference, and also how far we can with justice prevent interference by others.”6

The Blockade Venezuela’s history of political instability, civil war, and chronic insolvency meant that bondholders, foreign residents, and their respective governments

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had ample grounds for complaint. Berlin and London were particularly aggrieved, and the attitude of the country’s leader, Cipriano Castro, who was considered by many to be rude, dishonest, and corrupt, only exacerbated tensions. Germany’s plans to mount an intervention were an open secret, and, by early 1902, Britain began to contemplate joint action. Negotiations ensued, and by late summer an agreement to act in concert had been reached.7 When Berlin and London informed the administration of their plans, the president reacted much as he had to previous European interventions in the Caribbean. While he did not encourage the blockade, neither did he ask them to reconsider. He did, however, warn that Washington expected them to refrain from permanently occupying Venezuelan territory. In light of the later receptiveness of these governments to the possibility that the United States might assume oversight of the financial affairs of insolvent governments in the Caribbean, it is noteworthy that TR and his advisers rejected a potential resolution offered by a prominent New York bank. J. & W. Seligman and Co. Bankers informed the administration that, at the request of Caracas, they would be willing to cover Venezuela’s obligations, in return for “moral support” and “approval” from the U.S. government. The secretary of state demurred, citing the need for approval from Congress for such an undertaking and a disinclination to intervene merely for the purpose of compelling “the fulfillment of contractual obligations.”8 Within days of imposing the blockade, in early December, the Europeans aroused the suspicion of many Americans by undertaking a series of punitive actions that appeared excessive for a mission whose sole purpose was supposed to be the collection of debts. These included seizing (and then sinking much of ) the modest Venezuelan navy and destroying a fort in the town of Puerto Cabello.9 Publications of all political persuasions criticized this action, though Republican newspapers and journals tended to be more supportive of the president and to echo the administration’s viewpoint.10 Many editors argued that the blockade posed a threat to the Monroe Doctrine. “It is difficult to see how the United States government can maintain its neutrality. . . . The Monroe doctrine is threatened,” fumed The Constitution of Atlanta. The St. Louis Post-​Dispatch wondered whether it was not time to inform Berlin and London “that American patience, humanity and policy may be tried too severely.”11 The press framed the European expedition in a manner that was distinctly unfavorable to Germany. Britain was generally portrayed as a friend, and some saw its partnership with Berlin as the product of trickery or naivety. The San Francisco Examiner insisted that Germany “resents” the Monroe Doctrine

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and wanted “colonies and coaling stations in South America.” In contrast, The Courier-​Journal of Louisville opined that it would be “next to the impossible to draw England into a war with this country.”12 Newspapers in New York City were particularly prone to this narrative. An editorial of December 15 in the Democratic New York Herald expressed “not the slightest intention” of questioning Britain’s good faith, but called German emperor Wilhelm “the ‘wicked partner’ in this affair.” The Herald argued, “It is with the design of divorcing the Anglo-​American ménage that the Emperor has cajoled the British government into acting with him.” The Herald also criticized the most influential German-​American newspaper in the country, the New-​ Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, which had partially defended Germany’s actions in the blockade. It implied that the Staats-​Zeitung, and by extension German-​ Americans who failed to condemn the blockade, had divided loyalties.13 These insinuations provoked an immediate response. The Staats-​Zeitung charged that the British press sought to prejudice Americans against Germany and “to arouse the belief . . . that Germany is following in Venezuela plans which could lead to conflict with the Union.” The Staats-​Zeitung believed that this alleged campaign was having the desired effect, not only upon “newspapers whose sensationalism is well known, but also in serious papers.” In the latter category, it cited the New-​York Tribune, the Evening Post, and The Sun as the principal offenders.14 At first, Republicans in Congress were almost as critical of the blockade as Democrats. Shelby Cullom, the Republican chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, warned that, though the situation did not yet constitute a threat, if it were to escalate, then Germany might “come in collision with the Monroe doctrine.” Other leading Republicans such as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge and Representative Robert Hitt, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, reportedly agreed with Cullom. Members of Congress expressed unease about the safety of the isthmian canal being planned in Colombia, close as it was to Venezuela. Though this concern was present on both sides of the aisle, Democrats were more explicit in their criticism of the blockade and were quicker to question whether the administration was doing enough to protect the Monroe Doctrine. Representative David DeArmond from Missouri, for instance, introduced a resolution that asked what the administration was doing about the situation and used the phrase “Monroe Doctrine” five times.15 Though it is difficult to pinpoint TR’s attitude at this juncture, because he did not mention the episode in his personal correspondence for most of December, diplomatic correspondence and newspaper reports suggest that he

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wanted the blockade to be lifted as quickly as possible. Administration officials applied various types of pressure to achieve that goal. On the diplomatic front, John Hay and the U.S. chargé d’affaires in London, Henry White, urged Berlin and London to accept arbitration of the dispute, an idea first suggested by Caracas a few days earlier. White informed Hay that he was expressing his “grave fears” to Prime Minister Arthur Balfour and Foreign Secretary Lord Lansdowne that, if the blockade continued, there was bound to be an incident sooner or later that would “estrange if not antagonize American public feeling.”16 Meanwhile, Hay urged the German chargé, Albert von Quadt, to seek a quick resolution to the blockade because the public and Congress were “nervous and agitated.” He warned the diplomat that Congress might well pass a resolution directing the president to ensure that the Monroe Doctrine would not be “injured.”17 On the naval front, the presence of a large fleet in the region ensured that the United States would be prepared to outgun the European expedition if necessary.18 The details of these preparations were released to the press, as was the presence of Admiral George Dewey, probably in order to increase the pressure on the Europeans not to prolong the blockade.19 The administration’s pressure on the European powers reflected growing criticism of the blockade in newspaper editorials and Congress. Roosevelt and his advisers were concerned about partisan politics, specifically being perceived as having failed to protect the Monroe Doctrine. As press reports and debate in Congress indicated, Democrats were preparing to adopt this line of attack if the blockade continued. The Evening Star (Washington, DC) featured a column, “At the White House,” that often carried political news overlooked by other newspapers. At the height of the blockade, it noted that as the Monroe Doctrine was a topic “about which the average American is particularly sensitive, it would be easy to raise a storm of discussion which might seriously embarrass the executive branch of the government.”20 Sensitivity to the political consequences of anger about the blockade can be seen in the administration’s public statements. Those historians who contend that TR himself considered the Monroe Doctrine to be in danger by this point have overlooked the fact that, while pressure was applied on Berlin and London to accept arbitration, administration-​inspired articles in the press continued to insist that the Monroe Doctrine was safe.21 These statements matched the administration’s private evaluation of the situation. One newspaper reported: The President  .  .  .  cannot see anything menacing to the Monroe doctrine in the situation at this time. . . . It may be stated that the

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administration does not expect any unfriendly act on the part of either of the countries that is now giving Venezuela trouble. He is confident they will keep within the limits of the agreement made with this country. He is likewise confident that neither country wants to do anything that would gain the ill-​will of this country. The President, in brief, is standing by the agreement made by Secretary Hay with England and Germany, and is satisfied Mr. Hay did not leave any loopholes for an attack, direct or indirect, on the Monroe doctrine.22 Roosevelt’s concern about the reaction of his countrymen to the blockade reflected his understanding of the nature of public opinion. Contrary to the prevailing view that Americans were generally apathetic about foreign policy, TR believed that his countrymen were, at times, prone to becoming too passionate and to agitate for aggressive and even imprudent action.23 As the blockade continued, the president believed that such an attitude was coalescing, and he took several steps to counter it. He attempted to address the anxiety among members of Congress or at least dampen the public airing of it. Senator Cullom, at first the most prominent Republican critic of the blockade, led this effort. In contrast to his early public statements, by December 16 Cullom began to echo the administration’s public stance, which maintained that the blockade was not a danger to the Monroe Doctrine. On behalf of the president, Cullom and Representative Hitt urged their colleagues in Congress to show restraint in discussing the blockade, so as to avoid exacerbating public concern and thereby further complicate the administration’s task. The Evening Star reported, “Unguarded expressions of public men and especially proposed resolutions of inquiry offered in Congress are regarded as dangerous at this time.”24 Roosevelt and his advisers also sought to counter suggestions in the press that the Monroe Doctrine was under threat. Editorials appeared in pro-​ TR and Republican publications that echoed the administration’s stance. The Commercial Advertiser, edited by one of Roosevelt’s closest friends in the newspaper world, Joseph Bucklin Bishop, argued that newspapers had wasted a “great many unnecessary capital letters” speculating about the degree of danger posed by the European expedition. “The Monroe Doctrine is perfectly safe from interference,” Bishop asserted, and “Americans should bear this fact very clearly in mind and not allow themselves to be misled by the irresponsible, uninstructed babble” found in “the columns of so many newspapers.”25

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Administration officials also discouraged the more sensationalistic reports claiming that Dewey’s fleet was poised to crush the Europeans.26 Officials at the Department of the Navy insisted that “no order has been sent to the North Atlantic squadron or the combined fleets under Admiral Dewey since the departure of the squadron from the United States,” and that Dewey was “at liberty to dispose of the vessels as he pleases without regard to the developments of South American politics.”27 Some historians have suggested that the frequent allusions to public opinion on the part of Roosevelt, Hay, and White did not represent primarily expressions of concern about an emerging political problem for the administration, but were rather part of a coordinated strategy to force an end to the blockade. U.S. officials, goes the argument, used the sensitivity to public sentiment in Berlin and London as leverage in their effort to secure the raising of the blockade and to furnish an excuse for them to retreat with some dignity.28 This interpretation, however, downplays the extent to which the reaction of public opinion to the blockade was a threat to the president’s political standing at home, as well as to amity with the European powers. It is true that Roosevelt and his advisers saw Britain’s and Germany’s eagerness to retain U.S. goodwill as useful advantages for furthering the case for arbitration of the dispute. But when TR told reporters and foreign diplomats that he was worried about the reaction of his countrymen to the blockade, he meant it. This fact would have a profound impact upon his conception of the Monroe Doctrine in the coming months.

Contemplating Deeper U.S. Involvement in Latin America The pressure from the administration and anxiety about U.S. public opinion quickly took effect, as did both growing criticism in Britain of the blockade and Germany’s concerns about losing its blockade partner. Hence, on December 18, Berlin and London informed Washington of their willingness to arbitrate the dispute with Venezuela. However, they agreed to arbitrate in principle only, and certain claims were considered to be nonnegotiable and exempt. Until the terms for arbitration were agreed to, the Europeans would not raise the blockade.29 In the meantime, as Roosevelt and his advisers took stock of their options in the aftermath of the agreement on arbitration, the president began to consider significantly revising the Monroe Doctrine.

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Unlike in late November, at this point the administration contemplated working with U.S. financiers to assume responsibility for Venezuela’s debts and conducted negotiations with several firms. These discussions were terminated, however, when Caracas objected and the president was unwilling to proceed without the blessing of all concerned parties.30 TR also began to rethink the Monroe Doctrine as it related to the question of arbitration. When the Europeans agreed to mediation, they invited the president to arbitrate the matter personally instead of submitting it to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. At first, the administration dismissed this offer, but over the next few days TR reconsidered. Reports authorized by the president cited reluctance “to submit the Monroe doctrine to the arbitrament of any non-​American tribunal,” and the “inordinate length of time [that] would be consumed in getting the Venezuelan issue before the Hague tribunal.”31 That the United States should take sole responsibility for resolving a conflict between important European and Latin American governments would have been a radical departure from previous policy. It is therefore not surprising that TR’s trial balloon received little support.32 Few newspapers endorsed the suggestion; many vehemently opposed it. While editors gave several reasons for opposing the idea, the most common was that the United States should avoid becoming more deeply involved in the region. A number of editorials expressed concern that a precedent would be created whereby the United States would assume responsibility for the behavior of its Latin American neighbors. Many editors were particularly uneasy about the prospect of guaranteeing the financial obligations of Latin American governments for the benefit of European creditors.33 The response in Congress was equally discouraging. Congressmen in both houses reportedly were “deluged” with telegrams from constituents advising Roosevelt not to arbitrate. Leading Republican senators such as Shelby Cullom, Joseph Foraker of Ohio, and Orville H.  Platt of Connecticut all expressed their reservations about the proposal, which were similar to those in newspaper editorials. Finally, experts on international law and influential members of the northeastern elite, such as Albert Shaw, urged Roosevelt to decline to arbitrate the matter.34 Faced with such overwhelming opposition to a policy proposal that he did not consider vital, TR dropped the idea. Negotiations began in Washington between British, German, and Venezuelan representatives over the terms of arbitration to be held in The Hague.

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Assuaging German-​American Anger Anger in the German-​American community, reflected in the December editorials of the New-​Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, did not abate after Berlin and London accepted an arbitrated settlement. Roosevelt, as an avid reader of the New York press, had doubtless perceived the danger by mid-​December, but the full extent of the problem only became clear in mid-​January 1903. Hugo Münsterberg, a German-​American professor at Harvard (who was also in contact with the German Foreign Office), advised the president that the growing discontent in his community was increasingly focusing on the administration. “I hear all the time that you have . . . no sympathy for the German element in this country,” he wrote. German-​Americans in “the East are going against you with growing intensity.” Richard Bartholdt, a Republican congressman from St. Louis, explained to his fellow members of the House that the tension in the relationship between Washington and Berlin was agonizing for him and other German speakers and warned about the “jingoism” that was fueling the current problems.35 Roosevelt also received complaints from several prominent German-​Americans about the New  York City immigration commissioner, William Williams. They alleged that potential deportees were being treated with undue harshness. In early February, the Staats-​Zeitung explicitly condemned the administration’s policy for the first time. The U.S. minister in Caracas, Herbert Bowen, had won the trust of Cipriano Castro, and the administration allowed him to represent Venezuela in arbitration negotiations with London and Berlin, with the proviso that he act as an individual and not a representative of his government. Bowen’s tough negotiating tactics caused problems for the administration vis-​à-​vis German-​Americans, who came to see him as a thinly disguised conduit for an administration that was hostile to Germany. The Staats-​Zeitung excoriated Secretary Hay for “his pronounced preference for England . . . [for] his poorly concealed hate for Germany,” and for supplying “the alleged representative of Venezuela with the demands he should make. . . . [Hay’s] influence acts as a hindrance” to the negotiations to end the blockade. The Staats-​Zeitung also joined the ranks of critics of immigration procedures on Ellis Island. In addition, Emil von Schleinitz, editor of Germania, a newspaper in Milwaukee, warned the president of “great indignation” among German-​Americans. “They show a very decided inclination,” he wrote, “to make the dominant party responsible for the infamous and unprovoked attacks on Germany that they are compelled to read every day in the English press of this country.”36

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Roosevelt made every effort to assuage the feelings of this key constituency. He held a reception at the White House for prominent German-​ Americans. Münsterberg spoke with editors at the Staats-​Zeitung in an (apparently unsuccessful) attempt to convince them of the administration’s friendly intent. The president urged Immigration Commissioner Williams to “avoid any appearance of unnecessary harshness” in dealing with potential deportees and told him that “we must be sure that not only are we acting aright but that we are able to show to others that we are acting aright.” Success, he counseled the commissioner, depended upon Williams’s “ability to work with the best and most influential men,” to impress upon “the leaders in Congress that you are trying so to work with them for the public good,” and “to convince the representatives of the great bodies of American citizens of foreign extraction, especially in New  York,” of his good intentions. He also asked Joseph Bucklin Bishop to investigate the complaints.37 Roosevelt’s response to Emil von Schleinitz encapsulates the tension between his desire to retain the support of German-​Americans and his growing conviction that Germany posed a threat to the Monroe Doctrine. In an unsent first draft, he characterized the problem von Schleinitz referred to in his letter as “a subject of such weight” that he wanted to meet the editor “personally” to discuss it. At the same time, he wrote that, while he would “treat all foreign powers courteously,” he was determined to “uphold the interests of the United States against any one of them.”38

Resolution of the Blockade The situation in Venezuela, which had been quiet for a month, returned to the headlines in the second half of January when German ships shelled a Venezuelan fort twice in three days. Though no real progress had been made in negotiations between Bowen and the Europeans, the blockade had largely faded from public notice. The German bombardment changed this. The anti-​German narrative resurfaced in the press and Congress, with a renewed focus on the perceived threat to U.S. interests. Berlin’s protestations that it did not order the bombardment had little effect. Several newspapers criticized the attack and asserted that Germany entertained designs on territory in Venezuela or other parts of Latin America. Finley Peter Dunne’s Mr. Dooley aptly described the feelings of many in his satire of the blockade. “Hohenzollern”—​Germany—​“an’ Edward or Edwards”  —​Britain—​“con-​ spired together to go to Casthro’s place”  —​Venezuela—​“undher pretinse

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iv collectin’ th’ bill an’ throw Casthro out an’ take possession iv his prop­ erty.” “Hohenzollern,” according to Dooley, “was th’ more vilent iv th’ pair.” He “appeared, carryin’ loaded revolvers, which he fired into th’ windows iv Casthro’s shop, smashed in th’ dure, an’ endangered th’ lives iv manny innocint people.”39 Prominent Democratic newspapers began to question TR’s approach to the blockade and his commitment to the Monroe Doctrine.40 In addition, senators and representatives from both parties expressed concern about the renewal of violence. Galvanized by complaints from their constituents, they were reportedly “besieging” Hay and his subordinates with demands for an explanation of German actions and were confronting TR about the widespread unhappiness among the public.41 Talk of a naval confrontation circulated once more. The Washington Times reported that a “careful canvass” of senators and representatives demonstrated that many were “ready to strike back at Germany at the moment the Administration considers action necessary.”42 Several dailies reported that the “attitude of Germany” influenced the decision of the Senate Committee on Military Affairs to increase the number of support personnel for coastal defenses.43 At first, the administration’s response to this renewed anger with Germany mirrored its actions in December. As late as January 26, officials insisted that there was no reason for concern and that Minister Bowen would succeed in the arbitration negotiations. Officials informed the Chicago Tribune’s correspondent, “There is as yet nothing to which the United States can fairly take exception in the conduct of the blockade.” What was more, “Until Germany assumes to seize and retain some territory in Venezuela, the Monroe doctrine is not called in question.” Instead, the administration’s main goal continued to be preventing public opinion from overheating. The Tribune reported that “President Roosevelt is chiefly anxious that nothing shall be done to inflame public opinion in this country against Germany.” As in December, TR and his advisers privately sought to persuade Berlin and London to end the blockade, using public criticism as one of their main arguments. The British and German embassies in Washington reported intense displeasure among the press and government circles with Germany, which might make it difficult for TR to maintain his stance that the Monroe Doctrine was not threatened.44 Only at the end of January did TR conclude that the blockade posed a potential threat to the Monroe Doctrine. Officials shifted their emphasis in the press from dampening public anger about the blockade to warning the Europeans that U.S. patience had evaporated. After a cabinet

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meeting on January 30, administration officials expressed support for Minister Bowen’s latest proposal on behalf of Caracas and warned the Europeans not to take any further punitive measures, regardless of the progress in negotiations. Several newspapers carried virtually identical reports about the administration’s new position:  “It is made clear that the United States is not expecting and is not looking for trouble, but the administration is determined not to be unprepared for any situation that may arise.” Officials provided details about naval preparations to the press, including a mobilization of naval yards and stations. On February 4, TR issued his first public warning to the Europeans. The Commercial Advertiser reported that, though “The President desires the most friendly relations with England, Germany and Italy,” a continued European insistence on preferential treatment for their claims would strengthen suspicion that they did indeed wish to “embarrass this government in enforcing the Monroe Doctrine.” It also stated that concern for the situation in Venezuela played a role in the president’s strong support for the army staff bill.45 At this point Roosevelt probably issued a warning to the Germans about the possibility of U.S. naval intervention.46 When TR’s friend Hermann Speck von Sternburg arrived in late January to oversee negotiations for Berlin, Hay and the president took turns scolding him about the dangerous level of anger among Congress, the press, and the public. Sternburg also informed his superiors that Admiral Dewey’s squadron had received “secret orders” to be at the ready and he urged them to lift the blockade as soon as possible. However, if officials in Berlin saw this message as an ultimatum, they ignored it. The blockade remained in place and Germany seemed to be in no hurry to back down.47 On February 5, TR asked the Department of the Navy for an analysis of the strategic situation in the Caribbean and for a comparison of German and U.S. ship strength.48 As the president began to contemplate the worst, the crisis abated. The Balfour government, which had been urging Germany to moderate its behavior since late January, and which was under enormous domestic pressure to end its involvement in the blockade, broke with Berlin and signaled its willingness to reach an agreement on February 10.49 On February 14 Germany, unwilling to proceed without its partner, ended the standoff. It consented to an arrangement whereby Venezuela would pay its reserved claims in several monthly installments rather than all at once.50 It was agreed that the rest of the dispute would be sent to the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague.

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Rehabilitating Germany’s Image in the United States A postscript to this episode underscores the extent to which Roosevelt feared that the tension engendered by the blockade would harm the relationship with Berlin—​and his standing with German-​American voters. By early 1903, German officials recognized that relations with the United States had been significantly damaged. A key part of the problem was Germany’s poor image in the eyes of the U.S. public. As Sternburg explained to his superiors on March 1, in order to improve the relationship it would be essential to educate Americans about the “true” nature of Emperor Wilhelm’s policies. Cultivation of the press would be the most important part of any such effort. Sternburg spent considerable time over the next few months giving speeches and interviews to explain that Germany did not oppose the Monroe Doctrine and had not sought to annex any territory during the blockade.51 He viewed these efforts, in part, as a contest with Britain for American affection. He warned the German Reich chancellor, Bernhard von Bülow, in early 1905 that Britain had, in recent years, made a concerted effort to forge closer Anglo-​ American ties, largely through the use of “propaganda” published in leading U.S. magazines by British writers and statesman.52 In his effort to counteract the effects of British public diplomacy and to bolster Germany’s standing in U.S. public opinion, the German diplomat enjoyed the help of powerful allies:  the Roosevelt administration and its surrogates in the press. Reducing the hostility toward Germany would lower the likelihood of the type of anti-​German backlash that emerged during the Venezuela crisis in early 1903, and would thereby lessen the threat of war. It would also assuage feelings in the German-​American community. This would be in the president’s political self-​interest. In order to assist Sternburg, the administration worked with their contacts in the press to facilitate positive stories about the German emperor and his intentions regarding the Monroe Doctrine. The U.S. undersecretary of state, Francis Loomis, arranged a meeting between Sternburg and James Creelman, a prominent reporter for the New York World, in which Creelman assured the German diplomat that it was his goal to begin counteracting the “anti-​ German movement in the American press” that focused on Germany’s alleged flouting of the Monroe Doctrine. The result of this meeting was a favorable interview with Sternburg on February 8, in which the World suggested that the emperor would be “the Last Person in Europe to Disturb the Monroe Doctrine.” Loomis and Sternburg also collaborated in an effort to arrange for

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Figure  2.1 Hermann Speck von Sternburg, approximately 1908. Courtesy of the Sächsisches Staatsarchiv Leipzig.

Creelman to interview the emperor. Sternburg informed Chancellor Berhard von Bülow that, according to Loomis, just a few words from “his Majesty” would have a “beneficial” effect on U.S.-​German relations.53 Similarly, Sternburg encouraged von Bülow to meet John Callan O’Laughlin, one of TR’s closest allies in the press, who was on his way to Europe. He advised the chancellor that the journalist had close ties to the administration and that his reports could have “great influence” upon the nature of “America’s relationship with Germany.” Based on the strength of this introduction, O’Laughlin was given access to high-​ranking officials in the German government.54 In addition to pursuing a good story, the journalist served as a back channel between officials in Washington and Berlin. The head of the naval office reported to von Bülow that O’Laughlin carried a message from Admiral Dewey, the U.S. naval officer who had commanded the fleet that shadowed the Anglo-​German expedition in the Caribbean in late 1902 and early 1903. Dewey wanted Berlin to know that reports that the fleet’s maneuvers had

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Figure 2.2  Herman Ridder, publisher of the New-Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, 1910. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

been aimed at Germany were untrue. Instead, they were designed to prepare the U.S. fleet to repel an attack by any European aggressor. O’Laughlin further explained to his host that German-​Americans were, in general, “good citizens.” However, they constituted “a power” in U.S. politics and the Roosevelt administration had no desire to undertake a course of action that would earn the displeasure of this crucial constituency. Therefore, German officials should understand that anti-​German sentiment in the press did not enjoy the support of the Roosevelt administration.55 The concern O’Laughlin expressed about the effect of the blockade upon German-​American sentiment was highlighted by TR’s actions in the following months. During the summer of 1903, he visited the Deutscher Club in Milwaukee. The “inmates” there, he wrote wryly to John Hay, initially offered him a cool reception but, by the end of the meeting, had warmed to such an extent that they closed with a rousing round of “Hoch soll er leben.” Then, in a speech to the Sängerfest Association in Baltimore, Roosevelt praised the “ever-​increasing” contribution of German-​Americans to the great “history of our people” and called for more “Gemütlichkeit”—​essentially informality and friendliness—​in “American social life.” Behind the scenes, in early 1904, some of TR’s allies made a bid to purchase the influential Staats-​Zeitung, which

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had ties to the Democratic Party. They calculated that putting the paper in “clean hands,” as one correspondent put it, would bolster TR’s standing in the German-​American community.56 Presumably, having it in Republican hands would not hurt either. Bolstering his standing with German-​American voters was high on the president’s list of priorities in the aftermath of the blockade, because they would constitute a key voting bloc in the 1904 election. Even as he was visiting Milwaukee and Baltimore to reinvigorate support in this community, however, Roosevelt was forced to confront another foreign policy challenge that would become deeply intertwined with electoral calculations. In August 1903, a unanimous vote by the Colombian senate jeopardized one of TR’s foremost foreign policy goals: the construction of an isthmian canal in Central America controlled by the United States.

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Panic-​Struck Senators, Businessmen, and Everybody Else Colombia, Panama, and the Canal Route, 1902–​1 904

On February 5, 1900, Secretary of State John Hay and the British ambassador to the United States, Julian Pauncefote, signed a treaty that provided Britain’s assent to a U.S.-​controlled isthmian canal in Central America. The Hay-​Pauncefote Treaty appeared to signify a major triumph for the administration of William McKinley and to furnish yet another acknowledgment by Britain that the United States had become the preeminent power in the western hemisphere. However, Hay made a rudimentary political error when he negotiated and signed the treaty: he neglected to consult the Senate or any of the leading advocates of the canal project. Reaction from these quarters was rapid and unfavorable. Henry Cabot Lodge and John Tyler Morgan, a Democrat from Alabama who had devoted a substantial part of his career to ensuring that a canal be built, argued that the treaty was poor because it did not allow the United States to fortify the route. More dramatically, Theodore Roosevelt, at the time governor of New York, made his displeasure known in a series of interviews carried by the New York newspapers and argued that absolute control, “alike in peace and war,” was imperative for the future of U.S. “sea power” and for the preservation of the “Monroe Doctrine.” Opposition in the Senate quickly coalesced around the position of TR, Lodge, and Morgan, and Hay was forced to negotiate another agreement. The second Hay-​Pauncefote Treaty, which permitted the United States to fortify the canal, was ratified by the Senate without difficulty

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in late 1901. It seemed to promise the construction of a U.S.-​controlled canal in the near future.1 Roosevelt’s willingness to defy the McKinley administration came at potentially great political cost. He aspired to national political office and would be dependent upon the goodwill of party leaders to support his next move. His decision demonstrated his determination to ensure that the canal would be constructed in what he viewed as the proper manner. It also highlighted his ability to mobilize support for his foreign policy objectives. This would prove important because, by the time the second Hay-​Pauncefote Treaty was ratified, Roosevelt was beginning to question the suitability of the site that a majority of canal enthusiasts favored: Nicaragua. TR’s decision to switch his support to Panama in early 1902 triggered a series of events that presented him with one of the biggest foreign policy challenges of his career.

A Long and Complicated History Roosevelt’s commitment to the goal of constructing a canal was remarkable for its passion, not for its originality. Interest in transiting the isthmus of Central America can be traced to 1846, when the United States signed a treaty that guaranteed the government and its citizens the right of passage across Panama—​at that point still part of Colombia—​including on any future railroad lines or canals constructed there. In return, the United States agreed to ensure Colombia’s sovereignty over its northernmost province. Over the next half-​century, always at Bogotá’s request or with its consent (until TR deployed marines in 1902), the United States intervened repeatedly on the isthmus to repress various insurrections or disturbances. However, there was also considerable interest in Nicaragua as the site for a future canal. This fact was highlighted by the tensions that arose in 1848, when Britain threatened to seize the mouth of the San Juan River, which would have constituted the Caribbean entrance to a canal in Nicaragua. The crisis abated when the United States and Britain signed the Clayton-​Bulwer Treaty, which bound the two countries to joint control of any canal in Nicaragua.2 By the 1870s, Nicaragua was considered by many observers to be a more promising location for technical reasons. Even though a canal there would be, at 170 miles, more than three times longer than one in Panama, it would be at a lower elevation and could use Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River. The preference for Nicaragua was only strengthened by a spectacular failure in Panama in the 1880s. Formidable natural obstacles and the devastating effects of malaria and yellow fever had doomed a French effort there, led by

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Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had overseen construction of the Suez Canal. By the 1890s, the public and most politicians viewed Nicaragua as the preferable route. This was largely due to the efforts of John Tyler Morgan. He believed that the construction of an isthmian canal would play a key role in revitalizing the South’s economic fortunes by opening new foreign markets for the region’s exports. Morgan preferred Nicaragua, in large part, because its relative proximity to the southeastern United States would give seaports in the region an advantage over northern competitors. His enthusiasm meant that, by the mid-​1890s, he was the Senate’s acknowledged expert on the subject.3 After the French failure, the United States emerged as the most likely candidate to build the canal. Ratification of the second Hay-​Pauncefote Treaty gave the project considerable political momentum and, in January 1902, the House of Representatives passed the Hepburn Bill, which provided for the construction of a canal in Nicaragua. However, TR was changing his mind about the location. The Isthmian Canal Commission, more commonly referred to as the Walker Commission, which President McKinley had appointed to evaluate the candidates, concluded that Nicaragua was preferable. The most important factor was that the French company that owned the rights to the failed French project in Panama, the Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama (New Panama Canal Company), was demanding $109 million, a price that most considered to be extortionate. However, from a technical standpoint the Walker Commission had judged that, with advances in engineering offering potential solutions to many of the problems de Lesseps had faced, Panama constituted a superior site. Like most of his countrymen, Roosevelt had long favored constructing the future canal in Nicaragua. However, not long after the passage of the Hepburn Bill he decided that the canal should be built in Panama. Conversations with engineers, likely George S. Morison—​ who had challenged the conclusion of the Walker Commission—​seem to have been decisive. As he later wrote, “The great bulk of the best engineers are agreed that [the Panama] route is the best.”4 TR came to believe that the merits of Panama—​new technology would allow engineers to dam the Chagres River and create a large, artificial lake, much like the one in Nicaragua, but considerably shorter—​so far outweighed those of Nicaragua that it would be worth the effort to win the backing of Congress for the switch. In late January, Senator John C. Spooner introduced an amendment authorizing the president to purchase the New Panama Canal Company’s concession for no more than $40 million (the company’s lowered asking price), to negotiate a treaty with the Colombian government for the acquisition of a canal zone, and to construct the canal. A  lengthy and

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contentious debate followed, in which John Tyler Morgan led opposition to the amendment. He highlighted Panama’s traditionally turbulent politics and predicted, presciently, that choosing Panama would lead to a dangerous level of U.S. involvement there. But the amendment passed. TR signed the Spooner Act in June 1902. Among other conditions, it granted the president “reasonable time” in which to conclude a treaty.5 Warnings about the political hurdles presented by the Panama route proved to be prophetic. Bogotá had earlier expressed its eagerness to host a canal and flexibility about the terms it would demand in exchange for doing so. However, by late 1902, negotiations had stalled due to Colombian concerns about its sovereignty over the proposed Canal Zone, political unrest in Panama, and the landing of U.S. marines without Bogotá’s permission to protect the isthmian transit. An agreement was not reached until the administration threatened to terminate negotiations and begin talks with Nicaragua. However, the Hay-​Herrán Treaty was unpopular in Colombia, and the Colombian senate voted unanimously against ratification in August 1903. Many observers believed that this would force TR to turn to Nicaragua, because it left almost no time to find a solution before the treaty’s September 22 deadline for an exchange of ratifications. To make matters worse, from the perspective of Roosevelt and his advisers, there were indications that Colombia had rejected the treaty in order to extract more money from the New Panama Canal Company and the United States. The administration was also angered by reports that Bogotá might choose to interpret an extension of the New Panama Canal Company’s 1900 concession as invalid. This would mean that Colombia, rather than the company, would collect $40  million from the United States when the concession expired in 1904.6

The Canal Route Debate Reignites Colombia’s rejection of the Hay-​Herrán Treaty reignited the canal debate in the United States. Many called for the president to turn to Nicaragua. Senate Democrats featured prominently in this camp, led by Arthur Pue Gorman, of Maryland, a frequent candidate for the party’s presidential nomination, and John Tyler Morgan.7 Leading Democratic newspapers in New York City also urged the administration to drop Panama. Nicaragua proponents focused on a pair of issues. They argued that because the Spooner Act required TR to turn to Nicaragua if he could not reach an agreement with Colombia within a “reasonable time,” the president had no choice in the matter. The New York American declared, “Under [the

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Hay-​Herrán Treaty] it is now the duty of the President to turn to Nicaragua.”8 In addition, Nicaragua partisans had long considered Colombia’s political unreliability to be one of the chief disadvantages of the Panama route, a point they pressed with renewed vigor. The World argued, “The American people . . . are in a mood to welcome a return to a route that is not soaked in scandals, Chagres fever and South American politics.”9 Meanwhile, some advocates for the Panama route were pressing TR to circumvent the Colombian government. Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell University, told TR that he should “take advantage of the present impasse to secure title to the territory concerned.” The American Monthly Review of Reviews, edited by TR’s friend Albert Shaw, asserted that the administration should have “long ago . . . countenanced the separation of the Isthmus of Panama, and its international neutralization under the auspices and the protection of the United States.” Henry Cabot Lodge believed that TR could secure his preferred route “either under the treaty of ’46 or by the secession” of Panama. Shelby Cullom, chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, expressed similar sentiments.10 Others who favored the Panama route advocated a different approach. They urged that Roosevelt exercise patience, rather than resorting to force, in dealing with Bogotá. The Evening Star reported that “very many senators and representatives who in the last Congress fought for the ratification of the canal treaty” believed that TR should approach the Colombians “as a willful and vacillating child” that could not “be regarded as responsible for its acts in the same sense that applies to the great powers.” Mark Hanna, the powerful senator from Ohio who had served as President McKinley’s closest adviser, echoed this advice.11 Similarly, the Evening Post, The Nation, and the Springfield Republican expressed frustration with Colombia but advised the administration to continue negotiations. Unlike many other Panama proponents, however, these anti-​imperialist publications warned the administration not to abet Panamanian secession. The notion that Panama might seek independence from Colombia was hardly new; imbued with a strong strain of nationalism, it had rebelled frequently and, in the wake of the Colombian senate vote, speculation was rife that Panamanians would revolt rather than see their chance to host the isthmian canal squandered.12 While men such as Albert Shaw and Henry Cabot Lodge believed that the United States should encourage, and perhaps even intervene to ensure the success of, such a move, anti-​imperialists warned their countrymen about the danger of such thoughts. The Springfield Republican insisted that the “United States could not encourage a secession

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movement and then recognize the direct result of its own intriguing as an independent state without violating the spirit of the treaty of 1846 and also besmirching our national honor.”13 At the same time, these publications suggested that a rebellion in Panama would threaten the national interest and compel the administration to safeguard the isthmian transit.14 This attitude—​demanding that the administration do nothing to encourage secession but be ready to intervene if it should otherwise occur—​was noteworthy. Roosevelt and his advisers believed that these publications were influential opinion leaders and representative of an important faction within his own party:  various members of the elite on the East Coast, including anti-​imperialists and those who worked in banking and finance. There was a sense in some quarters that TR’s standing with party insiders and members of the northeastern elite was weaker than with the public. As the Republican-​ leaning Boston Transcript reported, perhaps with some exaggeration, TR was “at odds with many of the Republican leaders. He has little influence in or with Congress.”15 The support of such men would be vital in his bid to gain the Republican nomination for president in 1904.

Roosevelt Ponders His Options TR’s decision-​making in the months that followed the Colombian senate’s vote was shaped by his unswerving dedication to the canal project and his awareness that his actions would have long-​term ramifications. As he put it, “What we do now will be of consequence . . . centuries hence, and we must be sure that we are taking the right step before we act.”16 Roosevelt’s view of Latin Americans also influenced his thinking. He was convinced that they were inferior to what he considered to be more advanced peoples—​an attitude most of his countrymen shared. He informed John Hay that he did not think that the “foolish and homicidal corruptionists in Bogota” “should be allowed permanently to bar one of the future highways of civilization.”17 A year later, he wrote to Rudyard Kipling that the “corrupt pithecoid community” in Bogotá had not been entitled to the same “treatment I would give, say, to Denmark or Switzerland.”18 Roosevelt believed that Bogotá had acted in bad faith by rejecting the treaty. However, it would be simplistic to characterize the president’s reaction as nothing more than a product of his disdain for Latin Americans. Simply put, the Colombian rejection of the Hay-​Herrán Treaty offended TR’s sense of right and wrong.19 He wrote later of the Colombian president, José Manuel Marroquín, “who embodied in his own person the entire government of

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Colombia,” that “he had the absolute power of an unconstitutional dictator to keep his promise” to approve the treaty “or break it. He determined to break it.” All of this meant that TR was eager to find a way to remove Colombia from the equation. He was “not inclined to have any further dealings whatever with those Bogota people,” he informed John Hay.20 The president believed that he had little time to act before Congress considered invoking the Spooner Act. He and other Panama proponents feared that when Congress reconvened in November, advocates of Nicaragua would use the act’s “reasonable time” clause to increase the pressure on him to abandon Panama. Mark Hanna warned the president, “Our position must be strengthened to resist the attacks that will be renewed by a powerful lobby in the interests of the Nic[aragua] route.”21 Debate in Congress would offer a perfect platform for such people to make their case to a public that, outside of a few partisans on either side, seemed to care only that a canal be built, regardless of the location. The Atlanta Constitution observed, “The people want that canal—​somewhere—​ and are not at all particular as to where they do their ditching.” If a deal with Colombia could not be struck, then the president’s duty was to “start things going for a canal through Nicaragua.”22 Roosevelt knew that if he could not formulate a feasible plan for securing the Panama route, Congress might take the initiative, and that could mean trouble. “If Congress will give me a certain amount of freedom and a certain amount of time, I believe I can do much better than by any action taken out of hand.” he told Jacob Schurman. “But of course, what Congress will do I don’t know.”23 While this concern that Congress might invoke the Spooner Act constituted grounds for acting quickly, there were other reasons for exercising caution. Roosevelt believed that the public would reject the two methods that commentators were proposing for beginning construction of the canal in Panama without Colombia’s permission. TR wrote to Albert Shaw that seizing the canal route would be problematic because “As yet, the people of the United States are not willing to take the ground of building the canal by force.” As for encouraging secession, the president confided to Shaw that while he would welcome an independent Panama, “for me to say so publicly would amount to an instigation of a revolt, and therefore I cannot say it.”24 He informed Shaw that this was based on his belief that fomenting rebellion in Panama would be “underhand.” However, at the same time as he was writing to Shaw, Roosevelt and his advisers were quietly encouraging potential secessionists to act. It is therefore unlikely that the president considered such behavior to be dishonorable. A more plausible reason for his reluctance

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to speak publicly about his support for secession was a fear that it would engender considerable criticism from influential sections of the public—​and might even endanger his electoral prospects in 1904.

Taking the Canal Route By mid-​September, Roosevelt had formulated three possible responses to Colombia’s rejection of the Hay-​Herrán Treaty.25 One would involve seizing the isthmian transit route and building a canal without Colombia’s consent. While many had been advocating this course of action, TR seems to have first begun to consider it in August 1903, when John Bassett Moore, a professor of international law at Columbia University and a former Department of State official, had sent him a provocative memorandum. According to Moore’s reading of the treaty of 1846, Colombia had no legal grounds for preventing the United States from constructing a canal in Panama.26 Roosevelt especially liked the fact that Moore’s reasoning would have given unilateral action at least a veneer of legality. He wrote to Hay, “If under the treaty of 1846 we have a color of right to start in and build the canal, my offhand judgment would favor such proceeding.”27 However, such a dramatic step could not be taken without the approval of Congress. Therefore, he drafted a message urging Congress to empower him to purchase the rights of the New Panama Canal Company and to begin construction of the canal without Colombia’s permission. If Congress demurred, he would move forward with the Nicaragua route.28 Even as he was drafting this message to Congress, TR and his advisers were pursuing another option to build the canal without Colombian approval:  they were encouraging Panama to secede. The administration monitored reports of secessionist activity and remained in contact with several men who might facilitate a rebellion.29 One such figure, William Nelson Cromwell, was a prominent New York City lawyer and counsel for the New Panama Canal Company, whose stockholders stood to profit enormously if the United States chose to build the canal in Panama.30 Through Cromwell, John Hay met J. Gabriel Duque, editor of the Panama Star and Herald. Hay, while avoiding any direct commitments, made it clear to Duque that the United States would prevent Colombia from suppressing a Panamanian revolt. Another connection to potential secessionists in Panama was an engineer named Philippe Bunau-​Varilla, who had been involved in the original French effort in Panama and later became a large stockholder in the New Panama Canal Company. Bunau-​Varilla, a brilliant, charismatic man, at times

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single-​handedly kept the Panama route in contention. A gifted showman, he had a knack for rendering complex subjects in simple, vivid terms. Prior to the vote on the Spooner Act in June 1902, for instance, Bunau-​Varilla mailed each senator the official postage stamp of Nicaragua, thereby dramatizing one of the most easily understood arguments against constructing the canal there. The stamp featured a picture of Momotombo, one of several volcanoes in the country, which led many to believe, erroneously, that the Nicaragua route would be under constant threat from volcanic eruptions.31 The Frenchman met John Bassett Moore in late September and concluded that the administration was contemplating seizing the area where a canal would be located. In early October, TR hosted Bunau-​Varilla at the White House. During their conversation, the president avoided any commitments to intercede on Panama’s behalf, but the Frenchman left the meeting confident that Roosevelt would use military force to prevent Colombia from suppressing an insurrection. In fact, TR later remarked, Bunau-​Varilla “would have been a very dull man had he been unable to” guess how the administration would react to news of an uprising. In mid-​October, Hay informed him that orders had been given to naval forces to sail toward the isthmus and, on October 30, the Frenchman learned from Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis that a warship would reach Panama within days. Bunau-​Varilla, in turn, assured the Panamanian plotters that they would have U.S. protection when they acted.32 On November 3, the uprising occurred. The U.S. navy prevented Colombia from landing troops, and two days later Panamanian independence was a fait accompli. On November 6, Hay ordered the acting consul general at Panama to establish relations with the new republic. The same day, Bunau-​Varilla was named Panamanian minister to the United States.33 By mid-​November, Hay and Bunau-​Varilla had signed a treaty that provided for the construction of a U.S.-​controlled canal in Panama.34

The Fallout The administration’s stance in the days following the revolt emphasized the president’s desire to avoid any appearance of involvement. Officials crafted two bland press releases to the effect that a revolution had taken place, that a government would be duly organized, and that information was still sketchy. Only one sentence mentioned the administration’s obvious interest in these events: “The Navy Department has despatched several vessels to these ports, with directions to do everything possible to keep the transit open and

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maintain order along the line of the railroad.” This information, contained in a release marked, “Not to be used as a statement from White House,” portrayed the dispatch of the naval vessels as just one more intervention to protect the isthmian transit.35 Even most anti-​imperialists should not have been able to object to this framing, given the fact that the Evening Post and The Nation had demanded intervention under precisely these conditions. This attempt to disguise the administration’s role in encouraging Panamanian secession was consistent with Roosevelt’s approach to sensitive foreign policy actions that he anticipated would elicit strong public opposition. Generally, he declined to act in such situations unless he believed the policy was of vital importance and that he could operate in secrecy, or at least mask the full extent of his involvement. There was no question in his mind of the importance of securing the Panama route, and he seems to have believed that he could camouflage the administration’s contact with potential secessionists. However, there was a key difference between the Panamanian intervention and other episodes where the president successfully obscured the extent of his involvement, such as his role in negotiations to end the Russo-​Japanese War and the Moroccan crisis of 1905–​1906. In this case, many observers immediately suspected—​and were fiercely critical of—​his actions. Despite the efforts made by TR and his advisers, speculation that they had facilitated the events in Panama began at once. Much of the press coverage was critical, and Democratic and anti-​imperialist publications devoted considerable editorial space to the subject. They expressed concern that the United States was violating international law and the treaty of 1846 and, in doing so, would tarnish the nation’s honor. The Evening Post warned, “It would be an international scandal of the first magnitude if any American officials or officers should have had a hand” in encouraging or aiding the rebellion. The World asserted that “any taking sides or casting of obstacles in the way of Colombia’s retaining her territory, would be an invasion of a sister nation’s rights.”36 Critics also argued that the Spooner law, in light of the new complications in Panama, surely compelled TR to turn to the Nicaragua route. “The plain and imperative mandate of Congress embodied in the Spooner act is for the President to proceed with the Nicaragua Canal,” concluded the New  York Herald.37 Henry Teller, a Democrat from Colorado, asserted that the “haste with which recognition was extended was positively indecent.” He accused the administration of “bulldozing and browbeating” the weaker Colombians and asserted it would have been much more circumspect “had a big country been on the other side.” Arthur Pue Gorman called for the president to turn

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to Nicaragua and insisted that the United States “remain entirely clear of the present trouble on the Isthmus.” Senator Morgan warned the “administration will not have this matter to decide. It is a question for congress.”38 Gorman and some other Democrats viewed the controversy as having the potential to alter the political landscape prior to the election in 1904 and to render vulnerable a president who, up to that point, had rarely seemed to err. Certainly, some recognized that the situation could backfire on the Democrats. John Hay, for instance, informed British officials that he anticipated that “Democratic Senators might very likely attack the Government for the action taken with regard to the revolution in Panama,” but he predicted that such a strategy “would be ill advised.” Nevertheless, many proadministration voices were uneasy. “It is to be hoped that by no act direct or indirect will the United States in any way assist in the revolution,” warned the Wall Street Journal. “A violation of the higher law of nations, a law to which this country has always subscribed, is too high a price to pay for the Panama canal.” The New-​ York Tribune, edited by TR’s friend Whitelaw Reid, informed readers, “On the higher ground of honor and international obligation this country could not afford to incur the suspicion of having in any degree encouraged or aided the secession movement.” Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, advised Roosevelt that it would be a “bad thing” if “any accredited agent of the United States had stirred up the rebellion.” Newspapers reported disquiet among Republican congressmen.39 Roosevelt began to fear that he was losing control of the debate. He complained to his son that he was disgusted by how all the “panic-​struck Senators, businessmen and everybody else” reacted to “any little flurry of trouble, and the wild clamor they all raise for foolish or cowardly action.” Even worse than the criticism of the Evening Post “and the entire fool Mugwump crowd” was the fact that a number of Republican senators had “shown about as much backbone as so many angle worms.”40 To regain the initiative, the president and his advisers unleashed a broad counteroffensive. Their main weapon was the press, which they used to mobilize latent support among the public as a means of counterbalancing opposition in Congress and among members of the northeastern elite. A preview of the administration’s response to critics was released on November 5, and the next day John Hay issued a formal statement to the press. The secretary of state made four points: the treaty of 1846 obliged the United States to act in order to keep the transit clear; the intervention was necessary to protect the nation’s vital interests and the interests of the entire civilized world; as a legal justification for the continued military protection of

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the isthmian transit, the United States would continue to enforce the treaty of 1846 (in other words, against Colombia); and the administration had exercised enormous patience in treaty negotiations, whereas Colombia had shown nothing but bad faith, the implication being that Bogotá had only itself to blame for Panama’s secession.41 Hay’s statement furnished the bulk of the talking points for many newspapers that defended the president.42 It framed the debate in terms of an obligation to protect the isthmian transit in a time of political instability, rather than around the more controversial issue of intervening to secure an independent and pliable Panama as a host for the canal route. This disarmed many anti-​imperialists, as the Evening Post and The Nation had earlier called for intervention on precisely these grounds.43 It also cast the United States as the hero of the story and Colombia as the villain. The administration, Hay argued, had presented Colombia with a treaty that “contained provisions of extraordinary liberality,” but Colombia had rejected this alleged generosity “unanimously and without consideration.” This claim was difficult for the critics to refute because the Democrats, who were mainly Nicaragua partisans, had always considered Colombia an unreliable partner, and the anti-​imperialists had also harshly criticized Bogotá. TR and his allies repeatedly used this effective line of attack over the next three months.44 The administration’s decision to release selected papers and correspondence related to the intervention—​including TR’s draft message to Congress, which outlined his plan to purchase the New Panama Canal Company’s concession in Panama and to dig the canal without a new treaty—​proved effective.45 Though some criticized the president’s draft message and the fact that he released almost no documents from prior to November 3, many other observers were satisfied that the documents showed that TR and his advisers had not played a role in instigating the revolution.46 Harper’s Weekly declared that the papers “furnish indisputable proof ” that Roosevelt had no foreknowledge of Panama’s intention to secede, The Independent discerned “not a shred of proof ” of the involvement of U.S. officials in encouraging secessionists, and The Sun concluded that the administration “withstood temptation . . . it gave no countenance to the promoters of the Panama uprising and no promise of eventual support.” Publications that had earlier wavered were reassured. The Wall Street Journal gave its “complete endorsement” to “all that the administration has done in the Panama matter,” and the New-​York Tribune could not “discern the slightest indication of aid or meddling by the United States.”47 TR and his advisers also began to contact influential men who were positioned to refute the most damaging charge, that the administration

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instigated the revolution, and to spread the administration’s most effective criticism of Colombia, that its leaders were corrupt and dishonest. Roosevelt informed Albert Shaw, “I did not foment the revolution on the Isthmus” and Colombia “signed their death warrant when they acted in such infamous bad faith about the signing of the treaty.”48 The president also sought to reassure Republicans in Congress, whose unanimous support would be essential if the treaty with Panama were to be ratified. He informed John Hay that he had spoken with Joseph Cannon, the new Speaker of the House, who supported the Panama intervention but was “slightly nervous lest the prerogatives of Congress in foreign affairs should be overlooked by us.” TR instructed the secretary of state to stay in touch with Representative Robert Hitt of Illinois, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, and to “consult with him on any point where there would be a chance of Congress feeling that it had power of action.” Hay also spoke to Senator Joseph Foraker and assured TR that the Ohioan would be “all right about Panama.”49 Meanwhile, the opposition stalled, as Democrats and anti-​imperialists found it difficult to parlay their criticism of the president’s actions into an effective strategy. The Senate Democratic leadership resolved to oppose TR’s recognition of Panama. However, they could not agree whether or not to support the new canal treaty. As one anonymous senator confessed, there was concern that by opposing TR’s actions in Panama, they might lead the public to believe that Democrats were not as committed as Republicans to building a canal. Although the Springfield Republican, the Evening Post, and The Nation remained critical of Roosevelt’s conduct, a striking number of influential Democratic newspapers and journals dropped their opposition. Some accepted the policy as a fait accompli. The New York Times conceded, “Protest as we may against the manner in which the Republic of Panama has so suddenly been created . . . it is useless to shut our eyes to an accomplished fact.50 The World concluded in mid-​November that “President Roosevelt’s action has been justified by subsequent events” and encouraged Democrats in Congress to withstand their leaders’ effort to form a unified front against TR’s policy.51 Even the most ardent of TR’s critics, anti-​imperialists based in New York and New England, found it difficult to gain traction. A group of professors at Yale University, along with other prominent New Haven citizens, signed a petition condemning the president’s intervention in Panama, which they forwarded to the U.S. Senate. They were overshadowed by a counterpetition at the university a few weeks later that garnered many more signatures. The

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New York Anti-​Imperialist League attempted to generate a petition criticizing Roosevelt but gave up after gathering only seven signatures.52 By mid-​November, TR and his advisers, though still concerned about opposition from Democrats, believed that they were winning the public debate. Wavering Republican congressmen and friendly editors had rallied around the administration.53 Traditional allies in the press remained supportive,54 and a number of publications that had not initially commented on the intervention belatedly endorsed it.55 As TR told his son in early December, he “firmly” believed they would win the coming fight over the Hay-​Bunau-​ Varilla Treaty.56 However, a number of Democratic votes, in addition to Republican unanimity, would be needed to secure ratification in the Senate. The president and his advisers recognized that southerners would be the most likely Democrats to favor ratification, not least because many had long believed that an isthmian canal in Central America would provide a major economic boost to their region. The Mobile Register, for instance, declared that the South’s “commercial welfare so largely depends upon the opening of the canal.” Important newspapers such as the Atlanta Constitution, the New Orleans Times-​Democrat, the Dallas Morning News, and the Mobile Register all endorsed the treaty. The Constitution’s influential editor, Clark Howell, told TR that he had been urging his fellow southerners to back the treaty “with all the force at [his] command.”57 Even if there was some unease in the South about Roosevelt’s actions, there was a tendency to focus on ends rather than means. The Dallas Morning News argued, “Nothing is to be gained by thrusting obstacles in the way of President Roosevelt or of any one else who is really bent on securing an Isthmian canal at the one place or the other.” Many newspapers criticized Democrats who opposed the treaty and some warned that such a stance would guarantee defeat in the 1904 election. The Times-​Democrat judged that the party’s chances in the next election would “be effectually destroyed by any opposition it may present . . . to the construction of the Panama Canal.”58 The president’s mailbag also indicated that there was strong southern support for his course of action. William G.  McAdoo, a prominent New York businessman who was raised in Georgia and Tennessee, wrote that he was “gratified by your sound, vigorous and patriotic treatment of this question and I am ashamed of our Democrats, and all of our Pharisees, to [sic] oppose you.”59 A  prominent politician from Alabama assured Roosevelt that “so far as the Panama situation is concerned, a considerable majority of the people with whom I have talked at home give unqualified

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endorsement to your course.”60 Cecil A.  Lyon, chairman of the Texas Republican State Executive Committee, congratulated TR on his “action in the Panama matter” and wrote, “Texas, as a state, is very jubilant over the prospect of an early completion of the canal, as we think it will be of vast benefit to us.”61 A correspondent from New Orleans exclaimed, “Bully for Panama! . . . What a pity you are not a good Democrat so we could give you the vote of the Solid South.” One Democrat who had had “much communication with our Southern people on the situation and the attitude of the Administration with reference to Panama, and the Panama Canal” assured Roosevelt that “whatever the attitude of our Senators and Representatives in Congress may be, our people are with you in your efforts to build a canal through the Isthmus of Panama.”62 Despite this widespread support, the administration knew that it would not necessarily translate into votes in the Senate. Democrats might yield to the temptations of partisanship, be swayed by the arguments of anti-​imperialists, or defer to the judgment of John Tyler Morgan, the longtime Senate expert on the subject of canals. Roosevelt complained in mid-​December that “every effort is being made to dragoon the democratic senators to voting in a mass against the treaty.” Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw agreed and argued that Democratic opposition to the treaty could be undermined by mobilizing public support. “The opposition, if it accomplishes anything, will be based on sentiment, and now is the time to create sentiment that can not be overridden,” he counseled TR.63 With this advice in mind, members of the administration began to discuss tactics to push southern senators to break with their party leadership. One way to do this, Shaw suggested, would be to orchestrate pro-​Panama “resolutions by Boards of Trade and Chambers of Commerce and other business associations throughout the South,” which he believed “would have a very desirable effect” on senators. The president also mobilized sympathetic newspaper editors. TR wrote to John Temple Graves of the Atlanta News, asserting that while the canal would benefit the entire nation, it would “be especially a benefit to the South.” He also pointed out a recent editorial in The Outlook that portrayed Colombia as a nation wallowing in tyrannical misrule. “I fail to see how anyone reading it can thereafter have a sentimental objection against my having refused to allow our nation to be held up by Colombia,” he argued. He wrote to Samuel White Small, associate editor of The Constitution, that the canal would be “most beneficial to the South and the Pacific slope” and predicted that construction of the canal would “rank in kind . . . with the Louisiana Purchase and the acquisition of Texas.”64

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While TR and his advisers believed that ratification of the treaty would depend upon their ability to secure the votes of a large number of southern senators, they continued to reach out to critics in the Northeast, especially those located in New York. Shaw spoke at the New York Chamber of Commerce. Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis and Bunau-​Varilla defended the administration at the Manhattan Hotel’s Quill Club. Jacob Schurman spoke in support of TR’s Panama policy at the Cooper Union. Roosevelt implored George McClellan Harvey, the editor of the Democratic-​ leaning Harper’s Weekly, published in New York, to “help prevent the democratic senators from taking an attitude alike so foolish and so wicked” as opposing the treaty.65 Several factors played a role in the decision to devote precious time and resources to shaping opinion in this part of the country. One was the attitude of George F. Hoar, a respected senator from Massachusetts. A learned and principled man and a loyal Republican, Hoar was an anti-​imperialist and unlikely to favor the intervention in Panama. Few were surprised when he criticized the president at the outset of the debate. Roosevelt and his advisers judged that the impact of Hoar and like-​ minded critics needed to be blunted, since the Northeast would have a

Figure 3.1  Puck cartoon from 1904 mocking Senator Hoar’s criticism of TR’s Panama policy. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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disproportionate effect on opinion in the rest of the country. Though he followed press coverage and political gossip throughout the country, he paid special attention to the political mood in New  York. While he had long regarded newspapers such as the Evening Post and many of the people who read them with disdain, that did not lessen his sensitivity to their censure. He complained bitterly to one correspondent, “We have, especially in New York City and parts of the Northeast, a small body of shrill eunuchs who consistently oppose the action of this government whenever that action is to its own interests.”66 TR also believed support from members of the northeastern elite would bolster his bid to secure the Republican nomination and win the election in November 1904. Throughout his first term he received warnings that there was unease in this region about his leadership of the party. He wrote to Arthur Hamilton Lee that he was uncertain about the “political outcome” of his actions. “Whether the people of the United States as a whole do or do not approve of what I have done to the extent of making them wish to continue me in my present place, I cannot say.”67 Disquiet about Panama also signaled, among some Republicans, broader opposition to TR’s progressive policies. The focus for this sentiment was the financial community in New  York. Albert Shaw wrote to Senator Albert J.  Beveridge, a staunch supporter of the president, “The feeling against Roosevelt among the self-​opinionated classes here in New York is very bitter indeed.” Shaw complained about “the attitude of these densely ignorant educated people here who read the New York Times and the New York Evening Post” who, he claimed, “have their views manufactured for them by scheming corporation lawyers in Wall Street.”68 Roosevelt monitored this strand of opposition closely—​he wrote to one correspondent that in “New  York and New Jersey there is a good deal of uneasiness—​New York City being the center”—​with good reason. It was potentially dangerous, he believed, as long as Mark Hanna refused to endorse him for the Republican nomination. The president had been consolidating his hold over the party for several years, and Hanna remained the only significant hurdle to total control. Hanna’s role as William McKinley’s campaign manager, his skill in political infighting, and his network of lieutenants throughout the country made him a potentially powerful counterweight. By mid-​1903, the friction over leadership of the party had become an open secret, with Hanna refusing to endorse him and Roosevelt perceiving signs of Hanna’s machinations everywhere.69

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Figure 3.2  June 1903 Puck cover depicts Senator Hanna’s waning influence. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Debate in Congress Congressional debate about the Hay-​Bunau-​Varilla Treaty revealed weaknesses in the administration’s position as well as potential avenues for counterattack. Even though the House would not vote on ratification, the subject was sufficiently contentious to elicit extended remarks from both sides of the aisle. Democrats, led by Minority Leader John S. Williams of Mississippi, voiced a variety of conflicting ideas, including unease about Roosevelt’s intervention, concern about the possibility of war with Colombia, reluctance to abandon the Nicaragua route, and barely disguised enthusiasm that construction of

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a canal would probably begin soon, even if Panama would be the site. They were particularly anxious to demonstrate that they supported an isthmian canal every bit as strongly as the Republicans. As Williams admitted, “If we can not get [the canal] where it ought to be, we will take it somewhere else.” He conceded that “even at Panama it will benefit American commerce. It will benefit American industry, and it will strengthen the American Navy for the purpose of self-​defense.” Republicans recognized that their opponents were on the defensive and pressed their advantage. They argued that Democratic criticism of the administration gave aid and comfort to the Colombians, who might attack the United States in order to retake Panama, and they accused the Democrats of not really wanting a canal.70 Senate Democrats were much more aggressive in the debate than their counterparts in the House, and they were encouraged by George F. Hoar’s criticism of the administration. Hoar and the Democrats characterized TR’s policy as dishonorable, arguing that the president and his advisers knew about the revolution beforehand and planned to intervene in support. Morgan charged that “the President knew of such a conspiracy and stood ready with armed ships properly posted to protect those engaged in the ‘uprising’ when it should occur.” To make matters worse, the senator from Alabama continued, members of the administration had associated with undesirables such as Cromwell and Bunau-​Varilla “to guard the interests of the New Panama Canal Company.” This taint of dishonor extended to TR’s hasty recognition of Panama, a resolution introduced by Hoar on December 9 implied, as it was not in keeping with the conventional standards of neutrality during a conflict between warring parties.71 These men also argued that Roosevelt had overstepped his constitutional prerogatives. Morgan contended that, in deploying military forces in Panama, the president had employed his powers as commander in chief “with a dreadful latitude of construction.” Even worse, argued Hoar, TR seemed to have declared war on Colombia without the assent of Congress. “Mr. President,” he asked rhetorically, “is there any doubt that, as now standing unexplained, this was an act of war?” What was more, maintained Morgan, TR had contravened the Spooner Act by not turning to the Nicaragua route once the September 22 deadline expired. “The Spooner Law required him to open negotiations with Nicaragua and Costa Rica for that purpose. It had no reference to any caesarean operation by which a republic of Panama might be taken alive from the womb of Colombia.”72 Finally, critics in the Senate warned that not only had the president, in effect, declared war but that Colombia would almost certainly fight back.

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Morgan warned that TR “would need all his military abilities and all the money of the people in the Treasury and the lives of many of their sons” to defeat the guerrilla fighters that Colombia was preparing to infiltrate into Panama. Augustus Bacon of Georgia introduced a resolution that would have required the United States to compensate Colombia if it could be demonstrated that the administration had intervened to support Panama’s secession. He argued, “If we do not hold out to those people some prospect that the great United States Government . . . will in a proper, magnanimous spirit endeavor peacefully to adjust these differences, there must be war and bloodshed.”73 Given the seriousness of these allegations, and the skill with which they were presented, Senate Republicans had a much more difficult assignment than their counterparts in the House. Joseph Foraker, Henry Cabot Lodge, John Coit Spooner, and Shelby Cullom all rose to defend the administration.74 However, it was TR who spearheaded the counterattack. In written messages to Congress in December and January, the president forcefully reiterated many of the administration’s arguments. He continued to blame Colombia’s misgovernment and its bad-​faith negotiations for Panama’s secession, declaring that “no one connected with this Government had any part in preparing, inciting, or encouraging the late revolution on the Isthmus of Panama” and that it was not just U.S. interests that he was safeguarding, but the interests of the entire “civilized world.”75 The president averred that the country’s urgent need for the canal did not allow for any delay. This precluded further negotiations with Bogotá. He also countered the accusation that he was thwarting the will of Congress and ignoring the Spooner amendment by asserting that his intervention and swift conclusion of a treaty with Panama did precisely what the law commanded. In fact, he argued, those Democrats who continued to agitate for a Nicaraguan canal were attempting to bypass the Spooner amendment themselves and that it was “no longer possible under existing legislation to go to the Nicaragua route.”76 Thus, he declared, the argument that the United States could still turn to Nicaragua was specious. The only choices available, he warned his countrymen, were a canal in Panama or none at all.77

War Scare and the Prospect of a Modus Vivendi While the Senate debated the Hay-​Bunau-​Varilla Treaty, Bogotá was doing everything it could to regain Panama. Seeking to shape public opinion in the United States, President Marroquín released letters to Congress and the

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public in which he protested against the Roosevelt administration’s support for the uprising and beseeched Americans to condemn the “unlooked for aggression” against his country.78 Bogotá also sent one of the country’s leading statesman, General Rafael Reyes, to the United States to convince the administration to relinquish Panama or, failing that, to sabotage the treaty. To this end, Reyes hired Wayne MacVeagh, a shrewd lawyer who quickly made life difficult for Roosevelt by providing damaging information to his critics.79 Further complicating matters, a minor war scare erupted in mid-​ December.80 The prospect of U.S. forces pummeling overmatched Colombians aroused conflicting emotions. Some welcomed the possibility of conflict. Joseph Pulitzer’s The World proclaimed melodramatically, “Our legions stand ready to rush to arms. Our ships lie throbbing with banked fires. Our gallant President is eager to let loose the dogs of war in defense of Panama.” A headline in the New York American insisted, “Collision between Colombian Troops and U.S. Marines Is Imminent.” Others were horrified by the thought of slaughtering Colombians. The Nation scolded war enthusiasts, contending, “There would be no more ‘glory’ ” in war with Colombia “than in kicking a newsboy into the gutter.”81 Throughout his presidency, Roosevelt was uneasy about emotional public reactions to foreign policy issues, fearing that they limited his ability to formulate sound policy. In the case of the war scare, TR feared that the combination of sympathy for the Colombians and the fierce attacks of Democrats and anti-​imperialists might be enough to swing the debate to the opposition. He informed one correspondent in mid-​December that he was “more concerned about Panama than anything else . . . it will be a lamentable thing if a twisted party feeling should join with mere hysteria to prevent at this time the fulfilling of what has been accomplished.”82 Roosevelt’s actions during the war scare also indicated concern about the eagerness of many Americans for a fight. The only factors that had stopped the suppression of the Panamanian rebellion at its outset were the presence of the U.S. Navy, which had prevented Colombian troops from landing, and the inability of Colombian forces to penetrate the vast wilderness that separated Panama from the rest of the country. After the United States extended diplomatic recognition to the new nation, the administration had assumed an aggressive stance, stationing marines on the ground and maintaining a large naval presence in the area. The commander of the Caribbean squadron, Rear Admiral J. B. Coughlin, informed Reyes that the United States would block the deployment of soldiers anywhere in Panama, and the Joint Board of the Army and Navy advocated establishing a military presence at the border, in

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the Yavisa region. When Reyes asked Hay on December 11 how the United States would respond to a Colombian incursion, Hay warned him that the administration would “regard with the gravest concern any invasion of the territory of Panama by Colombian troops.”83 The administration’s hawkish position quickly became untenable. The use of troops beyond the narrow isthmian transit route would be of dubious legality. TR had justified his intervention by reference to the treaty of 1846 and the country’s obligation to keep the transit route open. However, until the treaty with Panama was ratified, the United States had no legal right to defend the rest of the new country. Also, TR realized that his initial deployment of the navy and marines had increased the chances of war. He genuinely wanted to avoid unnecessary bloodshed, but also worried about giving his political opponents an opening—​he knew that if war were to break out he would be more vulnerable to criticism from Democrats and anti-​imperialists. Some newspapers were already asking pointed questions. “In the absence of a treaty obligation, by what right does the president use the army and the navy to protect the Panama government from exterior attack, without authority from Congress to wage war,” wondered the Springfield Republican.84 In response to these concerns, TR adopted a more conservative military posture and a placatory tone in communications with Colombia. He rejected the military’s advice to extend defenses to the Panama border. He instead ordered that U.S. forces were to retreat in the event of a Colombian attack and to restrict military operations to defense of the isthmian rail line. “The political reasons against seeming to court a clash with Colombia outweigh the military disadvantages” of not occupying the Yavisa region, he wrote to one correspondent. When Reyes again asked how the United States would respond to a Colombian attack, Hay responded in a more conciliatory manner. The secretary of state warned against invading Panama, but informed Reyes that “the formal action we should take upon such a contingency must be determined by the circumstances of the case” and that the administration had “only the friendliest intentions toward Colombia, and will not lightly be provoked into assuming a hostile attitude toward that Republic.” Similarly, Hay warned Secretary of the Navy William H. Moody that warships making a scheduled visit to the Colombian port of Cartagena should avoid anything that might appear to be a “warlike demonstration. . . . General Reyes and our Mr. [Alban] Snyder [chargé d’affaires] in Bogota ought to be very fully informed of our intention beforehand, and also before the newspapers have had their fun of it.” Finally, naval vessels stationed off the coast of Panama were not to fire “unless

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fired upon” because if hostilities broke out, the president wanted to be “dead sure that Colombia fires first.”85 Even as the president continued to insist publicly that Panama’s independ­ ence was irreversible, he quietly began to explore some kind of U.S.-​brokered peace between Panama and Colombia, up to and including reunification. TR told Hay to see Reyes and “find out whether he has any practical proposal which we can even take up for consideration in connection with the Panama people.”86 A week later, Henry Cabot Lodge recounted to Roosevelt what he considered to be a promising conversation he had had with an unnamed representative of Reyes, regarding a deal that would have included an extremely favorable canal treaty and Colombian-​Panamanian reunification by popular referendum. The senator from Massachusetts encouraged the president to consider the offer.87 However, despite Lodge’s evident enthusiasm and the fact that Roosevelt seemed to be open to a deal, nothing came of the negotiations. One historian argues that TR opposed reunification unwaveringly and that he was only open to a Colombian-​Panama rapprochement based on recognition of Panama’s independence. This interpretation is based upon a letter Roosevelt wrote on November 30, in which he vowed not “to surrender the Panama people . . . to the Colombian people.”88 However, the president began to consider Lodge’s scheme only in December, when Roosevelt and his advisers grasped the difficulty of their situation. With Colombia poised to attack, and the United States restricted to defending the transit route, they became receptive to compromise. TR wrote to one correspondent in early January, “If . . . Panama can again become a state under Colombia, and desires to do so—​why, well and good; but they shall not longer tyrannize over Panama nor longer block the pathway of the canal.”89 Concerns about public opinion and the unpredictability of the Senate also made the administration more willing to negotiate with Bogotá. Hoar might vote against the treaty; southern Democrats might decide to observe party discipline; war with Colombia might erupt any day; the public could react unpredictably: there were a number of challenges that alone or in combination could damage or altogether sink the president’s policy. Hence, the possibility of securing an agreement that would be on the “exact terms” of the Hay-​Bunau-​Varilla Treaty, as Lodge wrote, and which would remove the possibility of war, had great appeal. Lodge noted, such an arrangement “will go through at once and [be] greatly approved by [the] country.” Even if the deal fell through, efforts to find common ground with Colombia, if made public, would give the administration “additional proof of our own good dealing and strengthen our position.”90

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Although both sides had reason to compromise, no deal for reunification emerged. By mid-​January, the administration was increasingly confident that the treaty would be ratified. In addition, TR and his advisers concluded that Colombia would not attack Panama. The U.S. Navy dominated the sea. On land, though there were reports of troop movements, it was clear that Bogotá was struggling to organize its forces. The U.S. minister reported that, despite considerable anger in Colombia, the government realized the “futility and undesirability of making war” and preferred to “settle the matter amicably, and to recognize the new republic, and to obtain thereby the best terms possible as to the payment of the foreign debt, etc.” Bunau-​Varilla, knowledgeable about the terrain from his time working on the French canal project, advised Hay and Root that Colombia would have enormous difficulty invading Panama by land.91 As the threat of war receded and ratification became increasingly likely, the incentive to compromise greatly diminished.

Securing Ratification At the same time that TR and his allies were making their case to the Senate, they worked behind the scenes to defuse their critics’ most damaging charges. Hoar’s resolution on December 9 rattled the administration. The president drafted his January 4 message to Congress with it in mind. In part, Hoar had questioned whether the provisional Panamanian government could legally approve a treaty with the United States. The day after Hoar introduced his resolution, Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis met Bunau-​Varilla, who urged the Panamanians to draft and adopt a constitution, which they promptly did.92 Roosevelt also reacted sharply to a piece of evidence read into the Congressional Record by Senator Morgan. The Alabaman quoted an article Bunau-​Varilla had published in early September in the French newspaper Le Matin that shrewdly analyzed the options open to the administration and forecast with amazing accuracy the policies TR would consider. Morgan argued that there was no way that the Frenchman could have known these facts without consulting TR or Hay about their intentions.93 The president claimed to be pleased that Morgan had publicized the article, which was published on September 2, before TR or Hay met Bunau-​Varilla or began to finalize their plans. He told Lodge that Morgan and his allies had overreached with this piece of evidence, that they had “proved too much” and that the administration could demonstrate this if necessary.94

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However, Morgan’s speech provoked a flurry of correspondence, indicating that Roosevelt worried about this line of attack. The president instructed Loomis to provide him with a brief summary of the assistant secretary of state’s interaction with Bunau-​Varilla, including the Frenchman’s meeting with TR at the White House. He did the same with John Bassett Moore. Roosevelt wrote to John Bigelow and Silas McBee, editor of The Churchman, arguing that Morgan’s argument was specious and that the clever Frenchman had been able to guess the administration’s intentions through foresight and assiduous detective work. Hay procured, through Bunau-​Varilla, a statement from the Panamanian minister of foreign affairs that attested that “there has been neither aid nor intervention of any kind offered in advance by the American Government.”95 These measures helped to stifle the final push of critics such as Morgan, who were gaining little traction outside of anti-​imperialist circles. Debate in the Senate continued into February but, by mid-​January, the outcome was clear. On January 18, the Committee on Foreign Affairs voted the treaty out of committee, and it was ratified a month later. Half of the twenty-​eight Democrats voted in favor of ratification. Of these fourteen men, twelve were from the South.96 It is impossible to fully assess the impact of the administration’s attempts to influence public opinion, but the final vote certainly vindicates the conclusion of TR and his advisers that the fight for ratification would be won or lost in the South. A final hurdle arose in late January. When the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations approved the treaty, Republicans attached a number of what they considered minor amendments. However, the administration worried that any changes would necessitate returning the treaty to Panama for a second ratification and delay construction of the canal. This prompted an exchange between Roosevelt, John Hay, John Coit Spooner, and Shelby Cullom, in which the senators were assured that Panama would permit the treaty to be interpreted to address their concerns. TR and Hay’s letters were masterpieces of tact, flattery, and persuasion, but the president and his advisers were privately bewildered that the senators could fail to grasp the potential impact of their actions. As TR delicately told Spooner, he did not think that they had “any right to jeopardize a great policy even to a slight degree, for the purpose of obtaining in a given way certain objects which can with absolute certainty be gotten by the methods already adopted.”97 The senators agreed to withdraw the amendments. The president was pleased with the result of the intervention in Panama, and with good reason. From a strategic perspective, it accomplished an

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objective that he had pursued for at least a decade, solidified the country’s status as the hegemonic power in the western hemisphere, and furthered his goal of building a world-​class navy. TR was not exaggerating when he later called it “by far the most important action” he “took in foreign affairs.”98 He also emerged from the debate confident that Hanna could no longer stand in his way; he confided to Albert Shaw in late January that his hold on the nomination was “assured.”99 Indeed, the successful conclusion of the Panama episode underscored the extent to which international politics had emerged as an advantage in Roosevelt’s bid to retain the presidency. Far from being a topic that Republicans would seek to avoid, TR and his party prepared to use his foreign policy record extensively in the upcoming campaign.

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Triumphs and Setbacks The Roosevelt Corollary, the 1904 Election, and the Dominican Intervention

For most of his first term in office, Theodore Roosevelt was the clear favorite to win the 1904 election. His popularity among “the plain people” was indisputable, the Boston Transcript noted in 1902. Although his relationship with many Republican Party insiders was strained, the death in early 1904 of Mark Hanna assured him of the GOP nomination. In the wake of Hanna’s passing, the British ambassador in Washington, Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, reported that the president’s chances in the upcoming election appeared “very promising.” Shortly before the election, Durand noted, “The vigorous character of Mr. Roosevelt, displayed so constantly in both word and deed, probably commends him to the ordinary elector,” and to “judge from the press and the opinions of Americans with whom I have come in contact there seems to be little or no doubt as to” his prospects.1 One basis for this conclusion was Roosevelt’s conduct of foreign policy. As they began to build a case for his candidacy, Republicans found that his record in this area offered a number of tangible accomplishments. Foreign policy, not coincidentally, furnished a significant section of the party’s election platform and much of the material for campaign speeches. In a speech in April 1904, Shelby Cullom, chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, summarized the argument. “With Theodore Roosevelt as President and John Hay as Secretary of State, the people may rest in assurance that our international rights will be cared for, the honor of the nation well guarded, and, so far as our interests may be affected by our foreign policy, they will be wisely conserved.” In a major speech in Chicago, Elihu Root, former secretary of war, extolled TR’s foreign policy record at length. Republican speakers also

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Figure 4.1  Puck cartoon highlighting TR’s domination of the 1904 GOP convention. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

warned audiences of the consequences of returning control of U.S. diplomacy to the Democrats. Henry Cabot Lodge asked one audience if they wanted “to substitute [the] blunders of ’93 or ’97 for the successes which have followed in unbroken sequences since?”2 Though he frequently relied on surrogates when campaigning, TR also liked to make his own case to the people. In a letter accepting the Republican nomination that was released to the press, and which served as Roosevelt’s closing argument, he emphasized his achievements abroad. He discussed Panama at length; noted that the Monroe Doctrine had been “strengthened

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and upheld” during the Venezuela blockade; recalled his actions on behalf of Jews in eastern Europe; underscored the settlement of the Alaskan boundary dispute with Canada; and touted his administration’s administration of Puerto Rico, Hawaii, the Philippines, and the protectorate of Cuba.3

Foreign Policy and the 1904 Election In spite of this confidence about his foreign policy record, the Venezuela blockade persuaded TR that his original conception of the Monroe Doctrine needed to be revised. For one thing, while he had long considered the Caribbean to be central to U.S. security, the episode had convinced him of the need to assert predominance in the region more firmly in order to dissuade other powerful nations, particularly Germany, from future interventions. He wrote to John Hay a few months after the crisis, “The Dutch and Danish possessions in America will be constant temptations to Germany unless, or until, we take them. The way to deliver Germany from the temptation is to keep on with the upbuilding of our navy.”4 Changing public attitudes about the Monroe Doctrine also influenced the president.5 Surprisingly, given his long-​standing recognition of the political sensitivity of the subject, he had been slow to grasp that, for many Americans, the definition of the doctrine had evolved and now prohibited any significant political or military interventions by Europeans in the Caribbean region. This fact, when combined with the public’s suspicion of Germany and the political problems that this caused for the administration among German-​Americans, necessitated a new approach. He admitted as much during a conversation with Hermann Speck von Sternburg in the wake of the blockade, when the German diplomat suggested some sort of joint European-​American oversight of Venezuelan finances. Roosevelt replied that he doubted such an idea would “find support in public opinion.” He continued that the blockade had “very much changed my view as to the interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine with relation to public opinion here.” His earlier belief, that the temporary landing of European troops in Venezuela would engender no criticism from the public, had been “mistaken.”6 TR’s thinking was clear as early as March 1903, when he told Sternburg, “A second attempt of foreign powers to collect their debts by force would simply not be tolerated here. I often think that a sort of protectorate over South and Central America is the only way out.” Subsequent events in the Caribbean only reinforced this inclination. Political instability and insolvency were

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common problems in the region. To make matters even more complicated, the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague regarding the dispute between Venezuela and the Europeans, in February 1904, gave preferential treatment to the claims of the blockading countries (as opposed to those countries, such as France and the United States, that had not participated). TR and his advisers believed that this would only encourage further debt-​ collecting expeditions in the Caribbean. It would, one State Department official remarked, “put a premium on violence.”7 Unrest in the Dominican Republic soon forced Roosevelt to contemplate putting into practice his new conception of the Monroe Doctrine. In early February 1904, Dominican insurgents threatened U.S. citizens and their property, prompting the U.S. Navy to intervene briefly. Americans with business interests in the country encouraged the president to do something to stabilize the situation, as did naval personnel in the Caribbean. Ministers in Haiti and the Dominican Republic warned Washington about the possibility of European, particularly German, intervention. As he contemplated his response, TR wrote to his son, “Sooner or later it seems to me inevitable that the United States should assume an attitude of protection and regulation in regard to all those little states in the neighborhood of the Caribbean.”8 However, the virulent opposition to TR’s personal arbitration of the blockade had demonstrated that, though Americans were ready for—​and indeed demanded—​a new policy that forbade European interventions in the Caribbean, they were less enthusiastic about the suggestion that the United States assume a sweeping new role in policing the region. Before acting, Roosevelt would need to develop a better sense of the political feasibility of his new policy and whether he could implement it before the November 1904 election. Hence, he began to attempt to rally public opinion even as he was evaluating it. In a speech in Chicago in April 1903, he used the same formulation of the Monroe Doctrine that U.S. statesman had been using for decades, but for the first time mentioned that “the growth and influence and power” of the United States should “redound . . . to the benefit of our sister republics whose strength is less.” He also linked his expanding conception of the Monroe Doctrine to two other long-​standing priorities, the construction of a canal in Panama and expansion of the navy. In a preview of the narrative that he would use frequently, he proffered the protectorate of Cuba as an example of the benign nature of U.S. power.9 Roosevelt expanded upon this theme in 1904. He began by launching a series of trial balloons in prominent journals. In May, Elihu Root read

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a letter from the president at a banquet in Chicago celebrating the anniversary of Cuban independence that formulated, for the first time, what would come to be known as the Roosevelt Corollary. In TR’s view, the United States had the right to act in the region to prevent instability or insolvency among its neighbors. “Brutal wrongdoing, or an impotence which 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 this duty,” he declared. Roosevelt also preempted anti-​imperialist critics by disavowing any intent to annex territory—​“It is not true that the United States has any land hunger”—​and by highlighting Cuba as a forerunner of future policy in the Caribbean: “I hail what [has] been done in Cuba not merely for its own sake, but as showing the purpose and desire of this nation towards all the nations south of us.”10 Anti-​imperialists and Democrats in Congress argued that the new doctrine would constitute a disastrous change to a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy. It would be virtually impossible to effectively police Latin American states, these critics asserted, especially their financial affairs. The World worried that “there are twenty Latin-​American republics, and under this program we might be called to intervene in all of them at once.” In addition, contended his detractors, Roosevelt’s proposal would invert the defensive nature of the Monroe Doctrine and make the United States the subjugator, rather than protector, of Latin Americans. In the process, it would violate international law and morality. The Sun argued “the United States Government has no more right or authority to read lectures of admonition and menace to the rulers or the people of those countries than they have to preach at ourselves.” The new policy could even lead to war with European powers, argued the Evening Post and The World.11 Many of these critics questioned TR’s judgment and motives. John Sharp Williams, leader of the House Democrats, called the Cuban banquet letter “the most absolutely reckless, unsafe, and . . . insane, utterance that has ever been attributed to a President of the United States.” Others characterized the proposal as a power grab and worried that Roosevelt was using this new policy as a cloak for imperialist expansion. The Evening Post compared him to Louis XIV and called the letter TR’s “way of veiling a dream of empire.”12 The president received only scattered support among independent and Democratic newspapers and members of the northeastern elite. Republicans in the press and Congress were conspicuously silent, and the broader public seems to have been indifferent.13

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Despite this criticism and the lack of enthusiasm from his party, TR remained convinced of the need for his new policy and contemptuous of his opponents, who were “a queer set of evil-​minded creatures, mixed with honest people of preposterous shortness of vision.” Indeed, he contemplated taking action in Venezuela, which was once again drawing the attention of European creditors. He also formulated a plan, the Dillingham-​Morales agreement, which would have put the United States in charge of Dominican debts and finances and, among other details, entailed a guarantee of Dominican sovereignty.14 However, the president concluded, all of this would have to wait until after November 1904. Much as he might mock Democrats and anti-​imperialists, Roosevelt was reluctant to implement such a radically new policy prior to the election. He wrote to John Hay about the possibility of intervening in Venezuela, “Of course we do not want to act in the closing weeks of the campaign.” Although his victory may have seemed a foregone conclusion, the president was determined to leave nothing to chance and was particularly keen to avoid providing his opponents with new avenues of attack.15 Hence, the manner in which Roosevelt introduced his new policy—​as an extension, rather than a dramatic revision, of the original Monroe Doctrine, and as the same policy that had been implemented in Cuba writ large—​was clearly designed to disarm, or at least pre-​empt, anti-​imperialist and Democratic criticism.16 This caution was warranted. As they prepared for the election in 1904, most Democrats were not optimistic. They had trouble finding a candidate and were forced to settle on Alton B. Parker. The judge’s chief attributes were that he might be able to unite the wings of the party—​he was a conservative Democrat supported by former president Grover Cleveland, but had also twice voted for the populist William Jennings Bryan—​and that he was, like Roosevelt, from the vote-​rich state of New York. In fact, Bryan fought Parker’s nomination, and though he campaigned for him in the autumn, the party remained divided. In addition, they had trouble finding issues around which to build a campaign, including in the realm of foreign policy.17 Nonetheless, Democratic strategists identified two related areas of vulnerability for TR. They believed they could make a case that Roosevelt had dangerously expanded the powers of the presidency. As one historian has noted, the election was a referendum on the president, even more so than was usually the case. Parker wrote in his letter accepting the Democratic Party’s nomination that Roosevelt was responsible for “the arrogation of unconstitutional powers by the executive branch of our government.” In addition,

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Figure  4.2  Puck cover from 1904 portraying TR as a would-​be emperor, echoing an accusation made by many critics. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

while they saw no room for attacking TR’s record in protecting the Monroe Doctrine in his first term—​the party’s platform stated only that it favored maintaining the doctrine “in its full integrity”—​Democrats anticipated that Roosevelt would encounter resistance from many voters if he sought to police internal affairs in Latin America. This was a shift at which he had been hinting for the past year. Parker, for instance, stated forcefully that “we repudiate the role of American continental policeman” and that an administration under his leadership would not “act as debt collector for foreign states or their citizens” and would “respect the independent sovereignty of each American state and its right . . . to . . . regulate its own internal affairs.”18

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This critique of Roosevelt found little traction with most voters prior to the election. However, it underscored two areas in which opposition to the president, in the personal and political spheres, was beginning to coalesce, including key figures in the Republican Party. Hence, even as TR was moving toward a comfortable victory in November 1904, considerable resistance to his second-​term agenda was already perceptible, not least in the realm of foreign policy.

The Limits on TR’s Foreign Policy The 1904 national election was, by any standard, a triumph for Roosevelt and his party. He retained the presidency in a landslide, with 336 electoral votes to 140 for Alton B.  Parker. Republicans gained a net of one seat in the Senate and thirty-​nine seats in the House of Representatives. Friendly newspapers portrayed the election as a vindication for Roosevelt and, more broadly, for the party’s platform. The New-​York Tribune declared that the result constituted “an overwhelming and impregnable verdict of approval for Republican principles and for the acts of the Roosevelt administration,” and the San Francisco Chronicle noted approvingly that the president would “have a Congress in full accord with him.”19 Many observers attributed the scale of the president’s victory to his remarkable ability to connect with the average voter. The Chicago Tribune wrote that “the better the American people know Roosevelt, the better they like him. For he is their sort of a man.” Even the Evening Post, hardly a fan, conceded that the result was, more than anything else, a consequence of the fact that TR had “captured the imagination of the American people.”20 Even more striking was the fact that a number of newspapers that had often been critical of Roosevelt saw reason for hope in his election. The Sun of New York, a frequent detractor from the right side of the political spectrum, argued that TR had “it in him to be a patriotic and a complete President.” The Constitution of Atlanta, expressing the view of many southern Democrats, saw “much in the man himself to admire” and predicted that he would “enter upon his new term of office less hampered by questionable pledges than any of his republican predecessors in a generation.” Similarly, the mugwump Springfield Republican wrote hopefully that the president was “in a position to lead his party and not to be led by it.”21 With the enthusiastic backing of most of his party, at least outside of Washington, overwhelming public support, and cautious optimism about

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his intentions even among many opponents, TR appeared to be poised for a dominating term. “The underlying relations between the executive and legislative departments at the present time are well-​nigh perfect. If they are handled just right” the president “can do about what he pleases,” Albert Beveridge predicted in a letter to Albert Shaw in late 1904. “The President has so far met with extraordinary success in all that he has undertaken, whether at home or abroad,” British diplomat Sir Henry Mortimer Durand reported a year later. “I hear on all sides that, except General Grant, no President of the United States has ever enjoyed such a measure of popularity and power.”22 In the midst of such encomiums, several potential problems were coalescing. On election night, Roosevelt announced that he would not run for president again. He had decided to treat his abbreviated stint from 1901 to 1904 as a full term and, in order to avoid violating the precedent established by George Washington, announced that he would not be a candidate in 1908. More than one historian has characterized this decision as the most significant error of his career.23 While this conclusion is debatable, Roosevelt’s lame-​duck status emboldened his opponents. Criticism leveled in public and private during the campaign emerged, stronger than ever, early in his second term. The charge that TR had accrued too much power and was acting in a dictatorial fashion resonated among many in the nation’s capital. This feeling was amplified by the fact that many representatives and senators disliked or distrusted the president and resented his success. The result was an atmosphere in which many in Congress were eager to see Roosevelt humbled. Ambassador Durand replaced Sir Michael Herbert, who died in 1903. While TR disliked Durand and considered him unintelligent—​ and campaigned, ultimately successfully, to have him replaced—​the British diplomat was a staunch advocate of stronger Anglo-​American ties and provided his government with thoughtful analysis about the American political scene. He reported to London, “In the Senate, and, to some extent, in the House of Representatives, he is not liked, and . . . there is a growing desire on the part of the Legislature to curb, if not to humiliate him.” This was true not only for Democrats, but even among some Republicans, where his support was “lukewarm.”24 The opposition in his own party was found mainly among conservatives, especially those with ties to business and Wall Street, and included at times such influential figures as Nelson Aldrich, a senator from Rhode Island, and Joseph Cannon, the Speaker of the House. This animosity only increased as the progressive nature of the president’s second-​term agenda became clear. Durand wrote to London that “some of the strongest men in the Republican

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party” believed that “a wave of ultra-​Radical and Socialistic feeling is going over the country” and that “the President, in his desire for popularity, is affecting to sympathize with the movement.”25 This perception of Roosevelt was reinforced by passage of the Hepburn Act in May 1906 and speeches, such as the one he gave in mid-​1907, in which he discussed the need for some government regulation of “the enormous concentration of capital employed in interstate business” and criticized “certain malefactors of great wealth.” James Bryce, the new British ambassador in Washington, reported after attending the New York State Chamber of Commerce banquet in November 1907 that a toast to the “health of the President was received with an almost dead silence, and in several of the speeches made evidences appeared [sic] of the displeasure which his utterances regarding trusts, railroads, and other large financial undertakings have excited.”26 The result was that the president could no longer rely on consistent support from congressional Republicans, a vexatious problem for a man whose sense of identity and professional success were so closely linked to his party. Despite broad popular support for the bill, passage of the Hepburn Act, which empowered the Interstate Commerce Commission to regulate railroad rates, took eighteen months and forced TR to maneuver between a coalition of Democrats and progressive Republicans, on one side, and conservative Republicans on the other. The bill finally passed by an overwhelming margin in May 1906, but was emblematic of the challenging terrain that Roosevelt faced in his second term.27 This was particularly true regarding some foreign policy debates that did not attract the same level of attention as the Venezuela blockade or the Panama intervention. To be sure, the people continued to support the president’s foreign policy agenda, which underscores his popularity and his ability to calibrate policies to remain in tune with public sentiment. Historian John Morton Blum writes of TR’s foreign policy record that “any Republican campaigner” in 1904 “could make, if he wished, an oration” on the subject “whose periods might caress wonderful substances of proved popularity.” Roosevelt altered his stance on the Monroe Doctrine, for instance, in part in response to his perception that public opinion had shifted.28 Despite this public support, TR faced considerable opposition in Congress to a number of foreign policy initiatives. Arbitration treaties with a number of European countries and Mexico failed to gain ratification in 1905, as Republicans and Democrats joined forces to reassert the role of the Senate in foreign affairs. They amended the (identical) treaties so as to

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require that a new treaty—​and hence the advice and consent of the Senate—​ be sought each time a dispute was submitted to arbitration. Roosevelt also played a crucial role in promoting a peaceful settlement between France and Germany at the Algeciras Conference, regarding a dispute over spheres of influence in Morocco, in 1905–​1906. Mindful of the long-​standing tradition of avoiding involvement in European affairs, TR kept his actions secret. Even so, word leaked, and Democrats in the Senate accused the president of having allowed the United States to become “entangled” in Europe’s political problems. As a result, the administration was forced to publicly disavow any responsibility for enforcing the treaty negotiated at the conference.29 The president and Secretary of War William Howard Taft also found it difficult to generate support in Congress for governing and defending the Philippines. In fact, Roosevelt believed that, absent active support from the public—​of which there was no sign—​Congress would not pass the necessary legislation and it would be better for the administration to acknowledge this, especially since the islands were vulnerable to attack by Japan. This would mean granting independence to the Philippines much sooner than the president believed prudent.30 These episodes indicated that Democrats would continue to oppose much of his foreign policy agenda and that, for the rest of his tenure, Roosevelt would frequently face resistance from some Republicans. In seeking to explain to Berlin this seemingly “systematic opposition” in the Senate to TR’s international agenda, a German diplomat concluded that conservative senators who did not dare openly vote against a beloved president on popular domestic initiatives, such as the Hepburn Act, viewed opposition on some foreign policy questions as politically safer.31 Although he had accomplished much during his first term, Roosevelt had additional goals in mind: participation, where possible, in maintaining the balances of power in Europe and East Asia, a process affected by Chinese and Japanese immigration to the United States; expansion of the navy; and, not least, carrying out the Roosevelt Corollary.

The Roosevelt Corollary and the Dominican Republican As early as February 1904, the president had begun to contemplate implementation of what would later be known as the Roosevelt Corollary in the Dominican Republic. He decided to delay the Dillingham-​Morales agreement, as it was commonly known, because of its controversial nature and the

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upcoming election. However, with a landslide victory behind him, TR felt confident enough to execute the agreement in early 1905. He signaled this during his annual message to Congress in December and in a speech by Root a few weeks later with the title “A Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine.”32 However, the Dillingham-​Morales agreement encountered opposition before it was even announced. News of the plan leaked, and a number of senators objected vigorously. To them, it appeared as though Roosevelt was seeking to implement the agreement without ratification by the Senate. Democrats criticized the accord and accused the president of overstepping his powers. Republicans were more guarded in their public statements, but many of them also viewed the agreement as an attempt to circumvent the Senate’s right to advice and consent.33 Roosevelt, unwilling to proceed in the face of bipartisan opposition but convinced of the need for action, quickly revised the pact and submitted it to Congress. The new document reduced the degree of responsibility for Dominican debt, changed the guarantee of territorial integrity into a promise to respect Dominican territorial integrity, and added a phrase to place the agreement within the context of the Monroe Doctrine.34 Nevertheless, the deal with the Dominican government drew strong disapproval from the same coalition of anti-​imperialists and Democrats that had objected to the Cuban banquet letter in May 1904. Even more troubling from TR’s perspective, as he later acknowledged, were indications that criticism had spread to important newspapers beyond the East Coast, such as The Constitution of Atlanta and the Courier-​Journal of Louisville.35 Though support from Republican and proadministration publications, such as the New-​York Tribune, the Chicago Tribune, and the American Monthly Review of Reviews was strong, there were credible reports in the press that Republicans in the Senate might not support the new document.36 There was concern that a precedent could be set whereby the United States would be responsible for ensuring debt payments by insolvent Latin American and Caribbean states. Also, senators on both sides of the aisle continued to worry that the new Dominican agreement would erode their right to advice and consent.37 Though he knew that ratification before the end of the session on March 4, 1905, was unlikely, TR wanted the Committee on Foreign Relations to report favorably on the treaty as soon as possible so that he could gauge its chances for ratification in the coming special session (from March 5 to March 19) or in the following session of Congress.38 So Roosevelt, his advisers, and his allies mounted a final push to rally public sentiment. The president submitted two special messages to Congress and spoke with individual senators at length;39 John Hay presented the administration’s case to the press;40 and allies such as

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John Bassett Moore, Albert Shaw at the American Monthly Review of Reviews, the New-​York Tribune, and the Chicago Tribune outlined the advantages of the agreement.41 The administration and its supporters stressed that the United States could not object to other nations attempting to collect debts in the Dominican Republic while simultaneously refusing to act to resolve the situation. They argued that the recent ruling by the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague, in favor of Germany and Britain, meant that U.S. creditors would find themselves at a disadvantage compared to those from nations that had intervened. Further, they explained that the administration had no intention of annexing any Dominican territory and that there had never been any plan to implement the Dillingham-​Morales agreement without seeking the approval of Congress. Despite these efforts, Republicans remained uneasy about the treaty, and the Committee on Foreign Relations approved the agreement only after amending it significantly. Democrats announced their intent to vote against it en masse.42 In the end, the best outcome the administration and its allies could secure was to have the treaty lay over to the special session. In the meantime, Roosevelt, after receiving the blessing of foreign diplomats and leading senators, agreed to a request from the Dominican government for the United States to administer the Dominican customs houses. This arrangement remained in place until the administration finally secured ratification of a new treaty with the Dominican Republic in 1907.43

The Senate and Members of the Elite versus Public Opinion TR formulated the Roosevelt Corollary, in large part, because he believed that most Americans wanted the United States to prevent future European incursions in Latin America. As best we can tell, this was an accurate assessment of opinion in Congress and among the public. As Durand reported to London in late 1906, “The feeling on this point has grown much more acute of recent years, and we should be very careful, indeed, not to disregard or seem to disregard it.”44 However, the administration’s insistence that the new policy would require the United States to police the behavior of other countries in the western hemisphere elicited a much more ambivalent response. Certainly, there is no evidence that it provoked widespread public opposition. However, in spite of the administration’s extensive efforts to draw attention

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to the issue, it failed to generate public support in the same manner as, for instance, the intervention in Panama. TR drew two lessons from the Dominican episode. One had already begun to form during an earlier dispute with Congress. He had been alarmed by the reaction of the Senate to his Panama policy, both in the immediate aftermath of the intervention and when key senators sought to amend the new treaty in early 1904. The events in the Dominican Republic not only reinforced his concern about the upper chamber in this regard, but led him to conclude that the Senate was “wholly incompetent” to be an equal partner in the conduct of foreign policy. While frustrated by the body’s partisanship and the tendency of even Republicans to attach amendments to treaties without regard to their long-​term consequences, Roosevelt’s chief complaint was more basic. Put simply, he concluded that most senators were ignorant about international politics and had no desire to educate themselves, which meant that they failed to understand the conditions that necessitated the Roosevelt Corollary. He complained to one correspondent that he was frustrated by the inability of senators and the public to grasp the fact that “we cannot perpetually assert the Monroe Doctrine on behalf of all American republics . . . without ourselves accepting some responsibility in connection therewith.”45 The Dominican episode also reinforced a crucial aspect of the president’s thinking about the role of public opinion in the U.S. political system. Jeffrey Tulis argues that TR was the first to make use of the “rhetorical presidency.” In other words, he was the first president to “go over the heads” of Congress in order to mobilize public support for his policies.46 While Tulis focuses on domestic debates, Roosevelt used the same techniques in pursuing his foreign policy goals. TR had seen that decision-​making in Congress with respect to the pending treaty with Panama in 1903 and 1904 was directly linked to public sentiment. To be sure, elite sentiment, especially on the East Coast, was influential, but opinion throughout the rest of the country could be even more important. A public that was sufficiently interested in and informed about a policy would encourage senators to act responsibly. It could “keep the Senate straight.” However, indifference or ignorance could allow senators to act parochially or to consider only the input of members of the northeastern elite. In his view, this latter scenario led to the Senate’s refusal to approve the Dominican treaty until 1907. The united opposition of Democrats, anti-​imperialists, and members of the Wall Street elite, along with the

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ignorance and indifference of the mass public, meant that senators were left “without much public pressure upon them.”47 In fact, TR felt that the public never fully understood or supported the Roosevelt Corollary. Toward the end of his presidency, as he recalled the interventions in Cuba—U.S. troops were sent to restore order in late 1906—​Panama, and the Dominican Republic, he complained that he “had to exercise the greatest care in order to keep public opinion here with me so as to make my interference effective” and had succeeded in maintaining public support “only by minimizing my interference and showing the clearest necessity for it.” In other cases where he would have liked to act, such as Haiti or Venezuela, he was unable to because the need for intervening “could not have been as clearly shown to our people.” The obstinacy of the Senate and certain members of the northeastern elite strengthened his belief that astute leadership, combined with an informed public, was essential to effective governance. Therefore, he wrote to one correspondent, it was a “prime necessity” that “public opinion should be properly educated.”48 This element of his worldview differs in an important respect from the prevailing interpretation, namely that TR had an essentially realist understanding of public opinion and viewed his countrymen as uninformed and mainly a hindrance to sound policymaking. The Dominican episode demonstrates that Roosevelt believed the public, rather than being the main problem, was a crucial part of the solution. In many cases, a significant proportion of the northeastern elite and many members of Congress served as the chief obstacles to the conduct of a sound foreign policy. This fundamental conclusion dovetailed with his long-​standing conviction that most Americans were patriotic and willing to support just and effective policies. Such ideas were also reinforced by the president’s increasingly progressive tendencies. TR’s disappointment in the wake of the Dominican episode should not obscure the fact that he managed to implement a significant new approach to relations with America’s neighbors in the Caribbean. The fierce opposition in Congress and public indifference to the state of affairs in the Dominican Republic did not prevent the implementation of the Roosevelt Corollary, but only delayed it for a few years. Indeed, the fact that he was able to revise the Monroe Doctrine, a cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy—​and did so in part based upon his reading of public opinion—​indicates that TR was not nearly as hamstrung in his diplomacy as some historians have argued. When it came

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to his principal objectives, TR was almost always able to count on the backing of most Americans. Often this support was latent and had to be roused, but few politicians in U.S. history have been more skilled in the art of evaluating public sentiment and then rallying it in order to counterbalance opposition from Congress or other groups.

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Behaving Righteously Relations with China, 1904–​1 906

During the first two decades of his career, Theodore Roosevelt had little trouble reconciling his personal convictions with his political instincts when it came to the question of Chinese immigration. He believed that, given the racial differences between white Americans and the Chinese, “no greater calamity could befall the United States than to have the Pacific slope fill up with a Mongolian population.” His reading of the political landscape dovetailed with this view. He endorsed the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded all laborers, not only because it enjoyed the support of most Americans, but also because it provided an effective issue with which to attack the “philanthropists”—​mostly members of the northeastern elite with whom TR often clashed—​who advocated a more moderate regime.1 Over time, TR found it increasingly difficult to support exclusion. Partly, this was because Chinese exclusion gradually became more repressive. After 1892, all Chinese except teachers, students, merchants, travelers, and officials were barred from the United States. A treaty negotiated with Beijing2 in 1894 extended the exclusion of laborers—​a term whose exact definition changed frequently depending upon the context and person using it—​for ten years. In addition, the Geary Act, which imposed tough new conditions on Chinese-​ Americans, came into force. Among other things, it required them to register and to secure a certificate as proof of their right to be in the United States. It was renewed in 1902 and extended exclusion to Hawaii and the Philippines. Then, after 1900, the Bureau of Immigration, under the leadership of Terence Powderly and later Frank P. Sargent, both of whom had close ties to organized labor, became a leading force in the exclusion movement. The goal of what one historian calls the Powderly policy was not only to achieve total

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exclusion, but also to drive Chinese residents from the country through constant harassment and the barring of all Chinese except for officials.3 By 1904, Roosevelt had become uneasy about the Powderly policy.4 Though he continued to advocate the exclusion of all laborers, he also believed that students and merchants should be admitted. He probably even favored naturalization for nonlaboring Chinese.5 His support for the policy of exclusion also weakened as, influenced by the work of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Brooks Adams, TR increasingly saw maintaining U.S. influence in China as a matter of the utmost importance. The brutal policies directed at Chinese immigrants were making that goal appear unattainable. They made it nearly impossible, he wrote to one member of his cabinet, to “enlarge our trade with China” and “make ever firmer our intellectual hold upon China.”6 Hence, when Beijing announced in early 1904 that it would not renew the 1894 treaty, but instead would seek a new agreement that would have barred only Chinese laborers, TR privately viewed this as the best way to begin revising a policy that was doing more harm than good. Yet reform would have to wait until after the election in November. TR worried that any retreat from a staunch embrace of Chinese exclusion would, John Hay wrote in his diary, cost him votes “on the Slope”—​the West Coast—​and among organized labor, endangering his electoral prospects. He made it clear he would not stand in the way if Congress extended the Exclusion Act without any reference to treaty obligations. Congress needed little encouragement, and did so in April 1904. Meanwhile, with the Bureau of Immigration successfully resisting Beijing’s desire for a new treaty that would have limited exclusion to Chinese laborers, negotiations soon stalled. In the meantime, the Roosevelt administration decided to maintain the status quo when the treaty with China expired on December 7, 1904.7 The Chinese had contested the exclusion policy every step of the way, but without much success. However, when the exclusion policy was extended to include laborers as well as more influential men, such as merchants and students, it generated even stronger antipathy and more pressure on the Chinese government to act.8 This was especially true of Chinese-​Americans, who were deeply concerned about new Bureau of Immigration measures designed to make it even more difficult for them to remain in the United States. They urged Beijing not to sign the bureau’s draft treaty. Several factors led to the use of an economic boycott to force a change in Washington.9 Partly, it coalesced as a reaction to the exclusion policies of the United States, which Chinese in both countries opposed.10 In addition, Chinese nationalism had been growing steadily since the Sino-​Japanese

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War of 1894–​1895 and consisted of a mixture of anger and humiliation at China’s inability to prevent the violation of its sovereignty. This first became apparent during the Boxer uprising in 1900. The boycott in 1905 and the unrest that followed it were, in large part, fueled by this same phenomenon.11 Finally, Chinese in the United States were probably instrumental in the decision of Shanghai merchants to organize the boycott. As early as 1900, leading Chinese-​Americans in San Francisco had discussed the idea of using a boycott to win more favorable immigration terms, and they supported the boycott morally and financially after it commenced. Beijing, meanwhile, did not actively discourage the boycott until it had emerged in full force.12

Influencing the Administration’s Response When news of a boycott reached the president in mid-​May 1905, he concluded that his fears about the deleterious effects of the exclusion policy were coming to pass. He informed the secretary of commerce and labor, Victor H. Metcalf, that the United States could not afford either from the “standpoint of our national interests or from the standpoint of civilization to be put in the attitude of failing to do complete justice and to show entire courtesy and consideration to the Chinese who are entitled to come here.” The best way to salvage the situation would be to reform the exclusion policy. He wrote to Metcalf on March 16, “No kind of insolence against Chinese gentlemen will be permitted. It seems to me that undue harshness has been exercised in the execution of this law.”13 The president realized he would need to strike a balance between reform and political viability. He envisioned a revised policy wherein laborers would still be excluded, but others would be admitted and all Chinese would be treated well. To succeed he would need to convince supporters of the exclusion policy that the reform he sought would not result in a greater influx of Chinese laborers. In addition, if and when the boycott commenced, he would have to persuade Chinese, in the United States and in China, to withdraw their financial and moral support for the boycott. Starting in mid-​May, two opposing groups sought to influence the administration’s response to, and the public’s perception of, the issue. Those with commercial and cultural interests in China, and much of the press east of the Rocky Mountains, urged the administration to take steps to stop the boycott. All believed that the exclusion policy should be made less restrictive, but while some hoped that a more moderate interpretation of the existing

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regulations would suffice, most thought that a less restrictive treaty would be necessary.14 Members of the business community were among the first to lobby the administration. John Foord was secretary of the American Asiatic Association and editor of the group’s Journal of the American Asiatic Association. The association had links to powerful business interests, such as Standard Oil, and influential officials such as William W. Rockhill, the new minister to China. It was a factor in the McKinley administration’s decision to issue its Open Door notes in 1899. In a letter to Roosevelt, Foord predicted that a boycott would commence unless the administration agreed to a new treaty that guaranteed proper treatment for nonlaboring Chinese attempting to enter the United States. He wrote that “commercial organizations throughout the country  .  .  .  missionary societies and other associations interested in this subject” had asked him to communicate to the president “the serious consequences such a movement may have on American trade with China.”15 In early June, a delegation from the American Asiatic Association delivered a similar message to the president. A group of cotton manufacturers from New England and the South wrote to TR, in early June, in support of a suspension of enforcement of the current treaty until a new one could be negotiated. Several of these men visited the White House a few days later. Commercial organizations throughout the country sent telegrams to the White House expressing concern about the impending boycott. They urged the president to push for better treatment of Chinese immigrants and new, less restrictive legislation in Congress. The Portland (Oregon) Chamber of Commerce urged Roosevelt to press the Bureau of Immigration to adopt “a more liberal interpretation” of exclusion laws and to form a “commission to inquire into the present exclusion laws and the method of their enforcement, with instructions to recommend to Congress such legislation as shall promote increased harmony between the two nations.” The Merchants’ Association of New York appealed to TR to negotiate a new treaty that would respect the rights of nonlaboring Chinese, condemned the exclusion act of 1892 as unreasonable and detrimental to U.S. interests, and urged Congress to revise the exclusion laws. After the boycott commenced, the San Francisco Merchants’ Exchange passed a series of resolutions that called for the administration to investigate its causes and to find a way to end it.16 These groups had an influential ally in Secretary of War William Howard Taft, who was one of the president’s closest advisers. A corpulent and scrupulously honest lawyer, Taft’s success as the first governor general to the Philippines, from 1901 to 1904, led TR to appoint him as secretary of war,

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a position in which he also earned approbation. By mid-​1905 TR had begun to consider Taft the most suitable man to succeed him. He viewed Taft as a skilled negotiator, troubleshooter, and public speaker who would continue his policies. In addition, with his roots in the populous Midwestern state of Ohio, Taft was potentially the most electable successor. Later it would become clear that he did not possess TR’s political skill, but during the Chinese boycott Taft was TR’s most important lieutenant. Taft wanted to address the Chinese complaints quickly, before the boycott movement could gain traction. “If the Chinese come to the conclusion that we are not treating them right they will resort to nearly anything in the shape of a boycott, and it will take us years to change their minds,” he told reporters. Taft provided a steady stream of similar advice to Roosevelt behind the scenes.17 Clergy, missionaries, and educators in China also lobbied the administration. Missionaries were influential advocates on behalf of the Chinese because they were widely perceived to be selfless servants of God and agents of Western civilization. However, many Chinese viewed them with suspicion, even hostility, and they were frequently subjected to violent attacks. As a result, they could only work under the protection of Western military forces, which further increased resentment. As the exclusion debate returned to public view, missionaries joined the chorus of those calling for reform. American members of the Education Association of China asked for better treatment for students. Failure to act, they warned, could damage the influence educators enjoyed in China. The Chinese at Canton Christian College sent a petition with the backing of the local Protestant missionary community, warning that the exclusion policy was damaging Christianity in the eyes of Chinese. The Missionary Review of the World, the most important missionary publication of its time, argued that Chinese demands were “justifiable, for the way we have treated the Chinese who have come to our shores is a disgrace to us.”18 Much of the press east of the Rocky Mountains echoed these calls for reform. Independent, Republican, and Democratic publications generally favored excluding laborers while allowing entry for all other Chinese, and there was a broad consensus that immigration officials should enforce the exclusion laws with less severity. The New-​York Tribune spoke for many when it wrote, in an editorial entitled “Exclusion Run Mad,” that “we ought not, in excessive zeal to prevent a few undesirable Chinamen from slipping over the border, to subject Chinese merchants and scholars to hardship,” nor “anger the Chinese nation to the serious detriment of our export trade.” The satirical journal Puck observed facetiously, noting that some Chinese were urging U.S. “Christians

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Figure  5.1  Photo of William Howard Taft speaking with TR, 1908. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

to carry out the Golden Rule they talk about. . . . What an irritating and embarrassing way of putting things the Chinese have!”19 The second group that sought to influence the administration and the broader public was the Chinese. Chinese-​Americans had been growing increasingly concerned about a Bureau of Immigration strategy that was designed, not only to tighten the exclusion laws, but also to begin forcing their community out of the country. Between 1900 and 1905 there were a number of organized attempts to fight back, including a call for Beijing to secure modification of the immigration treaty or let it lapse altogether.

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Ng Poon-​Chew, a charismatic man who spoke excellent English and was editor of the largest and most influential Chinese-​language daily newspaper in San Francisco, Chung Sai Yat Po, embarked on national speaking tours in 1901 and 1905 to call for the modification of the exclusion laws. He was invited to address the House of Representatives and met TR, whom he probably convinced to modify the exclusion laws so as to allow Chinese members of the press and missionaries to enter the country.20 Ng coauthored a book, with journalist Patrick Healy, called Statement for Non-​exclusion, which was designed to arouse sympathy for the cause. Ng addressed a San Francisco Merchants’ Exchange meeting in August 1905, informing them that he favored an exclusion policy that barred laborers but permitted all other Chinese. During a speaking tour, a leader of the reform organization K’ang Yu-​wei also called for reform of the exclusion acts.21 Beijing was ambivalent about the boycott. On one hand, Chinese leaders saw it as having the potential to undermine a policy they had long opposed. In addition, officials were anxious to demonstrate to Chinese-​Americans that they empathized with their plight. Relations between Beijing, Chinese-​ Americans, and the various reform groups that opposed the Chinese government to one degree or another were enormously complex. Critics of the dowager empress’s government regularly traveled to the United States to seek the support of Chinese-​Americans, so Beijing took steps to court this important constituency as well. Indicating support for the boycott was a logical step, and as late as July officials assured Chinese-​Americans that they did not oppose it. On the other hand, Beijing was reluctant to antagonize the United States, perceived as the friendliest of the great powers.22 Hence, Chinese officials walked a fine line between demonstrating their support for Chinese-​ Americans, who, on the whole, strongly supported the boycott, and placating the Roosevelt administration. Like the other interested parties, Chinese officials sought to influence administration policy and public opinion. Two viceroys contacted TR through John Barrett, a diplomat and trusted adviser to TR, warning that “great harm to American interests, both commercial and political, in China is sure to result unless” the administration embraced reform. Chentung Liang-​Cheng, minister to the United States, informed reporters in July that his government played no role in encouraging or supporting the boycott and that the Roosevelt administration’s promise to seek a more moderate exclusion policy would eventually cause the boycott to fade. He also tried to persuade the public of the merits of reform. In November, he addressed a Chicago audience

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about the need for a policy that excluded laborers but permitted entry by all other Chinese. His article in Harper’s Weekly conveyed a similar message.23 Supporters of the exclusion policy also lobbied the president. Movement leaders were found in the Department of Commerce and Labor’s Bureau of Immigration, organized labor, Congress, and the press west of the Rockies. Secretary of Commerce and Labor Victor H. Metcalf, who as a member of the House of Representatives was involved in crafting exclusion legislation, was appointed by TR in 1904, mainly as a way to strengthen the president’s standing in California.24 Metcalf responded defensively to a May 16 letter from Roosevelt in which the president instructed the secretary to investigate and to order immigration officials to treat Chinese respectfully. Metcalf claimed that Commerce’s enforcement of regulations was entirely within the bounds of the law. He blamed factors outside the department’s control for any abuses, perceived or real, that had occurred, including incompetence and dishonesty on the part of the Chinese and U.S. officials serving in China. Metcalf rejected TR’s contention that relations with China could be alleviated by improving administration of the exclusion laws, arguing that the burden for resolving any conflict that might arise with China over the exclusion laws fell to Congress, “where alone existing legislation may be changed.” Metcalf repeated this argument in cabinet meetings, where he clashed with Secretary Taft, and in statements to the press.25 The exclusion lobby attempted a delicate balancing act. It opposed reform of the exclusion regime, but many in the movement also hoped to maintain a good relationship with TR. The editor of the influential San Francisco Chronicle, M.  H.  de Young, was a leading member of the Asian exclusion movement on the West Coast. His Chronicle was a progressive Republican publication that usually supported the president, yet it criticized his response to the looming crisis as sincere but naive and expressed concern that “the Administration should allow itself to become the victim of what is obviously a worked-​up movement to break down the exclusion laws.” Other influential western dailies echoed the Chronicle’s arguments. TR dismissed a warning from John Barrett that de Young’s rhetoric was intended to undermine him, but the fact that the Chronicle gave exclusion extremists a prominent platform was problematic for the administration.26 After 1905, the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, served as the leading vehicle for anti-​Chinese sentiment, especially among organized labor. League president Olaf Tveitmoe was, ironically, an immigrant from Norway, served as Samuel Gompers’s lieutenant on the West Coast, and had links to violent factions in the city’s labor movement.

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Figure 5.2  Samuel Gompers, approximately 1904. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

As editor for Organized Labor, the newspaper of the Building Trades Council, he had access to a large audience that was potentially sympathetic to his anti-​Chinese message. Other prominent members of the league included Edward J. Livernash, a former member of Congress, and Andrew Furuseth, another Norwegian-​born labor leader. Determined to block any attempts to reform the exclusion policy, the league passed resolutions condemning the administration’s goals and began releasing statements of support from members of Congress as far away as Maine and Illinois.27 The most powerful force in the exclusion movement at the national level, the American Federation of Labor, concluded that the threatened boycott

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was part of a larger effort to dismantle the exclusion policy. It sent a delegation, led by President Samuel Gompers, to lobby Roosevelt on the matter. Gompers was born in England to Dutch-​ Jewish parents and grew up in New  York, where his father was a cigar maker. In spite of these modest beginnings, Gompers was a skilled organizer and strategist and, by the turn of the century, the AFL had emerged as the largest organized labor body in the nation. Gompers had known the president since his days as an assemblyman in Albany. The two men had considerable respect for one another, but their relationship grew strained during TR’s tenure because of Gompers’ stance of “nonpartisanship”—​in fact, the AFL tended to favor the Democratic Party by 1906—​and the widespread antipathy in organized labor toward Chinese and Japanese immigrants.28 Spurred by the lobbying of Gompers, Tveitmoe, and de Young, exclusion supporters in Congress began to challenge the administration’s position. Thomas M. Patterson, a Democratic senator from Colorado, contended that while TR genuinely believed that the proposed reforms would admit only nonlaboring immigrants, the reality was that “the native cunning of the Chinese will soon find a way to permit hordes of laborers to enter the country.”29

TR Takes Action The strategy Roosevelt adopted in response to the boycott seems to have been affected little by the various interest groups that lobbied him. Instead, they influenced the president mainly in terms of tactics and timing. He had already settled upon the broad strokes of what he considered to be the best policy—​pushing for better treatment of all Chinese attempting to enter the country, while continuing to support the exclusion of laborers—​before the issue gained any traction with either the Chinese or the public. TR had long advocated this class-​based, rather than racial, policy. However, until May 1905 there had been compelling political reasons for him to acquiesce to the increasingly harsh demands of the exclusionists. Once the boycott loomed and threatened to inflict exactly the sort of “serious damage” that he had written to George Cortelyou about, he was forced to confront the reality that the United States could not retain a harsh exclusion policy and its commercial, cultural, and political influence in China. Characteristically, rather than seeing this as a binary dilemma where he would have to choose one option or the other, he wanted to have it both ways. He sought to retain the support of the exclusionists, while at the

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same time seeking reform in order to safeguard the other aspects of his China policy. In order to do this, the president and his advisers crafted a multifaceted strategy. First, they embarked on a campaign to demonstrate the administration’s determination to improve the treatment of Chinese attempting to enter the country. The president issued a series of executive orders to the Bureau of Immigration and the Department of State that were intended to reduce the scope for abuse and fraud. These were also designed to highlight the administration’s determination to reform the exclusion policy. For example, Department Circular No. 81, which announced, “Any harshness in the administration of the Chinese Exclusion Laws will not for one moment be tolerated, and any discourtesy shown Chinese persons  .  .  .  will be cause for immediate dismissal of the offender from the service,” was released to the press with great fanfare.30 In China, administration officials addressed two audiences. From the outset, they engaged the government in Beijing. Even though they faced strong resistance from Department of Commerce and Labor officials to any concessions, Rockhill and Hay continued immigration treaty negotiations in the hope of devising a formula that the Chinese would find acceptable. It seems unlikely, as one historian contends, that officials took this step in response to pressure from Americans and Chinese who favored a more moderate exclusion policy. Rather, reopening treaty negotiations was part of TR’s strategy to undermine support for the boycott movement. Roosevelt’s resumption of treaty negotiations was not a response to anticipated pressure, since administration officials had decided to do this before the vast majority of lobbying began—​Rockhill was working on a new treaty by June 1, 1905—​and they considered signing a new treaty to be an effective way to allay Chinese resentment. The consul in Canton reported in late May that guild leaders there agreed to urge Beijing to sign a new treaty with the United States only if it was less restrictive. Otherwise, they would commence with the boycott.31 Officials also sought to assuage the anger of potential boycotters. Rockhill sent instructions to the consuls for use in their discussions with local merchants. He urged them to point out that the boycott would injure the very parties in the United States who were working for a less restrictive exclusion policy and would financially damage the Chinese. The consul in Canton, Julius Lay, wrote to “The President of the Opposing Exclusion Treaty Society,” providing him with the details of TR’s recent order to immigration officials. Lay argued that since the United States had removed the source of the boycotters’ anger, they should end their agitation.32 The

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administration’s efforts were at times artless. At one point, the president essentially instructed Rockhill to ask the Shanghai trade guilds what it would take to end the boycott. The minister quickly advised Roosevelt to wait before taking such a dramatic step, as he believed that any sign of weakness would only encourage the boycott leaders to redouble their efforts. Washington accepted Rockhill’s advice without protest, a sign of its uncertainty as to how it should handle the situation. However, TR internalized Rockhill’s advice about the Chinese perception of weakness, and this would shape his decision-​making.33 The administration also sought to conciliate Chinese-​ Americans, who viewed the boycott as a way to force the administration to implement immigration reform. Roosevelt twice invited K’ang Yu-​wei, a leader of the Chinese Empire Reform Association, which was influential in the San Francisco Chinese community, to the White House. He also established a back channel to the San Francisco Chinese, using John Endicott Gardener, an immigration inspector in San Francisco, as a mediator. These efforts proved ineffective, as Chinese-​Americans continued to urge their countrymen to maintain the boycott until mid-​1906. Their efforts were halted only by the San Francisco earthquake, which devastated the Chinese community there and eliminated a key source of money and encouragement.34 With the second part of his strategy, Roosevelt sought to demonstrate that he was doing everything in his power to end the boycott. This was intended to convince the pro-​Chinese lobby and the broader public that the administration had the problem under control. A report in the Evening Star, orchestrated by TR or another official, sought to reassure the public about the prospects for a rapid end to the crisis. The boycott of American goods by Chinese merchants is receiving great attention by the administration, and it is likely that before long the President will take a hand in the efforts to have the boycott lifted in order that American trade can continue expanding as it has done in the last few years in the celestial empire. . . . The part that has been played by President Roosevelt in the settlement of a peace between Japan and Russia is expected to bring about a friendly co-​ operation of the Chinese authorities in overcoming the boycott. . . . There has never been any doubt that at all times the influence of President Roosevelt has been on the side of friendly cooperation with Chinese interests.

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Similarly, John Barrett told businessmen at the Trans-​Mississippi Congress in August that administration policies, along with other factors, offered hope of a rapid end to the boycott.35 In its effort to influence public impressions of its boycott policy, the administration tended to release to the press positive reports from officials in China and to withhold less encouraging information. For example, when the consul general in Canton sent a cable that noted the local viceroy’s welcome release of an antiboycott proclamation but also included a lengthy complaint about his failure to do anything more, Assistant Secretary of State Alvey Adee released only the first part of the cable to the press. By way of explanation to his colleagues, Adee added, “The President prefers reticence in regard to all these boycott matters.”36 While the Roosevelt administration was hardly the first to downplay discouraging foreign policy news, this tendency probably contributed to an overly optimistic view of prospects for a resolution and made attacks on missionaries in November 1905 seem even more sensational. In parallel with their efforts to convince the public that they were handling the boycott successfully, administration officials sought to bolster support for a more moderate exclusion policy, though a more concerted effort on this front would not come until the autumn. William Howard Taft made several high-​profile speeches to this end. In Ohio, he warned that the unjust treatment of Chinese attempting to enter the country endangered the pursuit of “one of the great commercial prizes of the world.” He urged members of Congress and government employees to “disregard the unreasonable demands of a portion of the community deeply prejudiced upon this subject in the far West, and insist on extending justice and courtesy” to the Chinese. He made a similar argument in a speech in San Francisco in early July.37 The third part of the administration’s strategy consisted of urging Chinese officials to suppress the boycott movement. This effort began slowly and did not accelerate until late July. The minister in China, William H.  Rockhill, took the lead. Part of the president’s foreign policy coterie since the 1890s, Rockhill shared Roosevelt’s belief that the United States should play an active role in international affairs and was TR’s first choice for minister to China. Rockhill was more of a scholar than a diplomat; he was fluent in Chinese and Tibetan and author of a number of books. The minister was the only member of the administration who really understood the country. He sought to impress upon Washington the fragility of the government in Beijing and the danger that undue coercion could lead to greater unrest and even revolution. He advocated a policy of applying firm and steady pressure on Chinese officials without resorting to dramatic threats or ultimatums.38

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For a time, Rockhill convinced Washington to follow his lead and his methods produced some encouraging results. He extracted from the Foreign Office and Board of Commerce orders to provincial officials that they curb boycott and antiforeign agitation. When Rockhill concluded that Beijing could do more, he warned the Chinese that the administration would hold them responsible for any economic losses incurred, and he ended treaty negotiations. This approach seemed to work, as officials in Beijing redoubled their efforts. The most important of these was an imperial edict that urged provincial authorities to suppress the boycott.39 With the final part of their strategy, administration officials reaffirmed their commitment to excluding Chinese laborers. TR continued to believe that Chinese laborers should not be permitted to enter the United States. In addition, the political factors that made exclusion such a powerful issue had not changed. The president and his advisers recognized that they must not alienate exclusion advocates, particularly among members of organized labor and in California. Roosevelt told a delegation from the American Asiatic Association, “I am not in sympathy with the demands of any organization which favors the importation of cheap labor, because cheap labor means cheap citizenship.” Officials made clear, publicly and privately, that they remained committed to excluding all Chinese laborers. TR convinced a delegation of AFL leaders at Oyster Bay in early July that he had every intention of ensuring that skilled and unskilled Chinese laborers would continue to be barred. Samuel Gompers told reporters that the meeting had been “perfectly satisfactory to us.” The president also assured Bureau of Immigration commissioner general Frank P. Sargent that he did not pay any “heed” to the widespread criticism of Sargent’s administration of the bureau. He informed the commissioner, “It is of very great importance that the coolie laborers should be kept out.” In his speech in Ohio on Chinese exclusion, Taft asserted that the United States “must continue to keep out the coolies, the laborers.”40 In spite of these efforts, movement leaders continued to oppose any changes to the exclusion policy, no matter how minor. Although they grudgingly acquiesced to TR’s executive orders, which were merely a first step toward reform, they were much less willing to countenance the more fundamental changes that would be needed to placate the Chinese.

The Boycott Despite the president’s efforts, the boycott commenced in late July 1905, centered on the Shanghai and Canton regions.41 The consul in Shanghai,

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James L. Rodgers, reported that many merchants, students, and literati had joined the movement, which he characterized as “effective to a considerable degree.” He also warned that it was spreading inland. On August 11, Rodgers warned that the boycott had “gone from bad to worse” and that “all American interests in Shanghai are now affected seriously.” In Canton, Consul Julius Lay warned that the agitation had “become more serious” and that Standard Oil and American flour were selling “less than normal,” while the British American Tobacco Company’s sales were “down 50 percent.”42 Throughout the summer, there were indications that the movement might spread beyond China, with boycott agitation reported among the Chinese communities in Yokohama, Nagasaki, Singapore, Saigon, Bangkok, Hawaii, and the Philippines.43 TR and his advisers closely followed the situation, and in late July their response to the boycott began to shift. In early August, Rockhill informed Washington that the Chinese government seemed unwilling to take further steps to suppress the boycott, which it viewed as a means to extract concessions on exclusion. Things were no better outside the capital. Consul Lay reported that, in his view, the Chinese authorities were “sympathizing” with the boycotters.44 Similarly, Consul Rodgers wrote from Shanghai that “the whole situation is now one of some menace” and that the viceroy there had shown a “thorough knowledge of the boycott movement” and a “disinclination to suppress it.” Meanwhile, treaty negotiations had stalled.45 These reports from China—​and their effect on officials in Washington—​ were shaped to a degree by the business lobby. Many companies that had a presence in China cultivated U.S. officials there, particularly the consuls, who focused on commercial issues. The pressure that these lobbies exerted in the capital also became apparent. In early July, Rockhill was informed that it was “represented to the Department [of State] by the Standard Oil Company that boycott . . . would be a grave disaster to the petroleum industry of the United States.” Once the boycott commenced, this pressure increased noticeably, as did its effect on officials in Washington. Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis informed Rockhill, “Protests against boycott are increasing here in volume and emphasis . . . take as strong action as is necessary.”46 Some officials worried that other countries viewed the boycott as an opportunity to gain ground on Washington. The consul general in Bangkok warned Washington that the Japanese were “losing no time in taking advantage of the situation.” Secretary of the Treasury Leslie Mortimer Shaw circulated reports that the British and Germans were using newspapers under their control to kindle Chinese anger. TR reacted phlegmatically to these

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warnings, but they fed his concerns that the exclusion policy was damaging U.S. interests in China and the region. 47 The consuls in China showed more concern about the immediate effects of the boycott than Rockhill and were more inclined to take a tough line with Chinese officials. Rockhill, while concerned about the welfare of commercial interests and frustrated by Beijing’s inaction, continued to view the problem as relatively minor within the context of the broader Sino-​American relationship and as one that would subside if handled firmly but patiently. This interpretation, which TR and his advisers accepted at first, began to lose traction as the boycott continued into autumn. As Roosevelt’s attitude hardened, he and his advisers began to assert publicly that the Chinese were not doing enough to suppress the boycott and, on August 15, officials at the Department of State informed reporters that the president intended to hold Beijing responsible for any trade losses incurred.48 The administration clearly intended this to increase the pressure on the Chinese government to act. However, it was probably also trying to explain the reason for their shift in tactics to Americans who were sympathetic to the Chinese, primarily business, commercial, and missionary organizations. It is impossible to evaluate how effective this tactic was, but the attentive public seems to have been receptive. For example, John Foord sent the president a telegram from the American Association of China that “fully approve[d]‌President Roosevelt’s demands on China.” Foord added that members of the American Asiatic Association had received a number of other “private advices” that were of a “similar tenor.” The association’s Journal criticized the Chinese for continuing “boycott agitation in face of satisfactory evidence that this Government has done all that it possibly can do in advance of the meeting of Congress.” The Reverend William Abemore argued that the Chinese were “appearing in a bad light,” were not “showing much appreciation of what America has been doing for them,” and should “cease threatening.” There was little inclination to criticize the administration’s harder line. The Wall Street Journal, for example, praised TR’s response to the boycott as the “way that ought again to open the Chinese markets to our trade without undue discrimination.”49 Nevertheless, by late August, business complaints reached such a level that the administration felt it necessary to have a senior official intervene. George C.  Perkins, a Republican senator from California, warned Roosevelt that the “commercial interests of San Francisco are much alarmed at the Chinese boycott.” Perkins noted that Secretary Taft was scheduled to visit Canton on September 4 as part of a trip to Asia. The senator,

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prompted by the requests of “commercial organizations and Pacific coast merchants,” urged the president to “comply with their request” to make Taft’s visit an “official affair with immediate authority.” This step, believed Perkins, would do much to end the boycott.50 Roosevelt rejected Perkins’s entreaty, but a deluge of similar requests followed. William D. Wheelwright, president of the Portland Chamber of Commerce, urged Roosevelt to give Taft’s visit to Canton an “official character” so that he would have a better chance of persuading local officials to suppress the boycott. S. H. Piles and Levi Ankenny, of Seattle, urged TR to “grant Senator Perkins [sic] request” because they believed that the “boycott endangered commercial interests of [the] entire Pacific coast.” Alvey Adee, after meeting the British American Tobacco Company’s Hong Kong representative—​who had apparently traveled to Washington to lobby the administration—​cabled the president to report that the company’s sales were “quite at a standstill” and that “interested parties” in Hong Kong wanted Taft to meet the viceroy. “I communicate to you with the hope that you may think proper and find it feasible to advise Secretary Taft accordingly,” wrote the second assistant secretary of state.51 The most influential communication came from Francis Loomis. After meeting W.  H. Libby, “Foreign Advisor of the Standard Oil Company,” Loomis telephoned William Loeb, the president’s secretary. The assistant secretary of state reported that the company had received cables that day, from Canton and Shanghai, indicating that the situation was serious. Standard Oil had “taken no new orders since July 18” in China, whereas they had sold 350,000 cases of oil in the same period the previous year. The company believed that the Russians and Germans were taking advantage of the boycott. Libby wanted Taft to go to Canton and attend a meeting scheduled between the viceroy and U.S. merchants. Loeb transcribed the conversation, which was wired to Taft the next day.52 It is unclear whether the sheer volume of requests or the heft of Standard Oil—​which seemed to enjoy special influence during the boycott—​caused the president to change his mind, but business pressure was undoubtedly the decisive factor. On September 2, he instructed Taft to meet the Cantonese viceroy and other Chinese officials there in order to “impress the extreme gravity of the situation upon the Chinese Government.” Roosevelt continued to stress the need to “do exact justice to the Chinese,” but he complained that the United States could not “submit to what is now being done by them.” Taft, not for the last time, acted as TR’s special emissary to a foreign government. In a speech in Canton, Taft reiterated Roosevelt’s determination to ensure

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proper treatment for Chinese attempting to enter the United States, as well as the president’s warning that the administration would hold Beijing responsible for any damage caused by the boycott. The secretary of war declared that for the Chinese government to allow “intimidation against those who would otherwise wish to give their trade to the United States . . . would be a violation of the treaty rights of the United States.” He also collected suggestions from merchants in Hong Kong about “modifications” they would welcome in a new exclusion treaty.53 Over the next few months, the boycott largely subsided in most regions as the result of suppression by Chinese officials and a truce declared by merchants. Yet it persisted in Canton. Roosevelt and Elihu Root, who became secretary of state after John Hay died in early July, were increasingly inclined to take a harder line toward the Chinese government and the local viceroy. Consul Lay warned about the strength of the boycott, that the viceroy was openly encouraging it, and that Rockhill’s strategy would fail. Instead, he urged “immediate action” by the administration, including securing the dismissal of the viceroy. At one point, Lay requested that the administration send a second warship to the province. He argued that the only way to force the viceroy to suppress the boycott was to demonstrate a willingness to use force if necessary. Otherwise, Lay believed, the United States’ “important trade” with “South China” would be “lost indefinitely.”54 Lay’s reports prompted a harsh rebuke from Rockhill, who chastised the consul for bypassing him and argued that one warship was more than enough to meet any contingencies. He warned Lay against threatening the viceroy and made the same case to Root, dismissing Lay’s request as a common response to trouble among “young” or “inexperienced” consuls. The minister asserted that the Chinese government wanted to suppress the boycott. Beijing was unimpressed by the possibility that they would be held responsible for trade losses, he maintained, but were motivated by a sincere desire to maintain good bilateral relations. Instead of overly aggressive demands, Rockhill argued that a policy of steady pressure would prove effective in the long run. In order to fully suppress the boycott movement, he believed, Congress would need to modify the exclusion laws.55 However, Lay’s arguments were beginning to shape the administration’s view of events. After one dispatch, Root asked the minister to respond to Lay’s analysis of events in Canton, indicating that officials in Washington might no longer consider him the final authority on such matters. Some officials believed that Rockhill was too sympathetic to the Chinese and not fully prepared to protect U.S. interests. For example, one wrote in the margin

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of a dispatch in late 1905 that he did not think that the minister had become “too pro-​Chinese as some people think.” Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis warned TR that Consul Rodgers was “more efficient, in some ways, than Minister Rockhill” when it came to dealing with “a situation which is largely of a commercial or business character.”56 Pressure from the business lobby played a role in undermining the minister’s standing. After a complaint from Standard Oil, Root countermanded a request from Rockhill, on behalf of the viceroy of Nanking, that the company remove some of its oil from a location outside of the foreign concession in the region. He instructed the minister to “promptly and strongly move Chinese Government to cause vigorous action by local authorities to remove the obstructions to these legitimate trade operations,” which the administration considered to be “an action in aid of ” the boycott. Similarly, Root felt it necessary to investigate allegations by the chairman of the Union Pacific Railroad that Rockhill had “deliberately deceived and misrepresented” him.57 Roosevelt’s inclination to take a tough line was strengthened by his growing conviction that the Chinese government would take advantage of any sign of weakness. This idea, of course, dovetailed neatly with his belief that the best way to maintain peaceful relations with the rest of the world was to project an image of strength and preparedness. Though latent at first as he sought to prove that he intended to reform the exclusion policy, this aspect of TR’s worldview emerged as the boycott movement persisted. Roosevelt decided that the Chinese had interpreted his effort to placate them as a sign of desperation. A  disagreement over the Canton-​Hankow railway concession, held by the American China Development Company until Beijing canceled it, greatly angered TR.58 His withdrawal of support for returning indemnity funds owed by the Chinese government, as recompense for the Boxer Rebellion, also appears to have been linked to Roosevelt’s anger over the boycott and the railway concession. He wrote to Rockhill in mid-​August that the Chinese “despise weakness even more than they prize justice, and we must make it evident both that we intend to do what is right and that we do not intend for a moment to suffer what is wrong.”59 TR and his advisers were also concerned by violence that seemed to presage an antiforeigner outbreak potentially more serious and widespread than the boycott movement. The most dramatic incident was an attack on American Presbyterian missionaries in Lienchow, three hundred miles inland from Canton, in late October 1905. After a series of misunderstandings, a Chinese mob killed five and wounded two. The missionary church, school, hospital, and residences were all destroyed. Officials in Washington

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interpreted the Lienchow attack as a direct result of the unrest surrounding the boycott movement. In addition, a rear admiral and his son, a lieutenant, were attacked in Nanking after accidentally shooting a local woman during a hunting expedition. Rioting followed. In Shanghai, a riot left twenty Chinese dead and several foreigners injured, including the U.S. vice consul and the German consul.60 TR reacted to these reports forcefully. The administration needed to obtain immediate, concrete action by the Chinese government and the Cantonese viceroy in order to forestall a strong reaction in Congress and among the public. Secretary Root instructed the U.S. legation in Beijing to “urge vigorous execution of edict by viceroy, and impress the Chinese Government with importance of adequate punishment, redress and protection” because “public sentiment here keenly aroused and efficient action by Chinese Government necessary to avert bad effect.” Rockhill did so immediately. He also insisted that the Lienchow attack was a product of the boycott movement.61 A  survey of newspapers in the East, Midwest, and West demonstrates, however, that there was no outpouring of editorial anger about the Lienchow attack or any inclination to blame the administration for it.62 Nor was the president’s mailbag flooded with letters demanding action, nor does his correspondence contain the slightest hint that congressmen or anyone else visited him at the White House in order to express anger over the attack. Many newspapers and journals did run eye-​catching stories, though these did not approach the intensity of coverage of other major foreign policy stories.63 In addition, the viceroy in Canton and officials in Beijing quickly condemned the attacks, pre-​empting criticism.64 In this case the president and his advisers were addressing what they anticipated public opinion would—​or at least could—​be. That is, they hoped to compel the imperial government and the local viceroys to suppress the antiforeigner movement before it escalated and became a major story in the United States. TR believed that this had happened in reaction to the British and German blockade of Venezuela and to his intervention in Panama, and he feared that such violent, emotional responses to foreign affairs constrained his policymaking. Concern about the public’s susceptibility to inaccurate or sensationalist news was a consideration for TR in every foreign policy episode that made, or even threatened to make, newspaper headlines. Advisers such as Elihu Root reinforced this tendency. Root, for example, confided to Nicholas Murray Butler in late 1906 that, in his view, “in the great majority of cases war is not made by governments of their own wish, but because they are urged into it by hasty, excited, and often misinformed public opinion.”65

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The president viewed the attacks as having the potential to ignite public anger about the situation in China in a way that previous incidents did not. He believed that the missionary movement was a vital force in fostering the spread of Western ideals and modernization, as well as stability, in China. Furthermore, he was aware of the respect with which his countrymen viewed missionaries. He warned Rockhill, who had a rocky relationship with the movement, about the importance of maintaining good relations with them. “I am more than anxious that the missionaries should feel that in you they have a constant and considerate friend and that you will keep as closely in touch with them as possible,” he had counseled the minister in May 1905.66 The administration tried to reassure the public that it was doing all it could to force the Chinese to protect the missionaries and to punish those responsible for the attack. It released to the press dispatches from Rockhill, which reported that the emperor had issued an edict that ordered the viceroy of Canton to punish severely the perpetrators and all negligent officials; directed that compensation be made to the victims and their families; and provide adequate protection for all the missions. These dispatches also noted that the viceroy at Canton had ordered that extra measures be taken to protect the missionaries at Yingtak, in Canton, which had also been attacked.67 As it had in other foreign policy episodes, the Roosevelt administration employed the specter of an enraged public to gain leverage in its negotiations with Beijing. Rockhill informed the Chinese Foreign Office that “public opinion in the United States was very much wrought up over this occurrence and that unless the Imperial Government took vigorous and prompt action the most unfortunate consequences might be expected to follow.” This tactic enjoyed a degree of success, as there were reports by early March that the Chinese government and press were concerned about the prospect that anger in the United States might lead to a military expedition.68

Preparing for Military Action and Influencing Public Opinion Mounting concern that the boycott movement was evolving into an antiforeigner movement, and a conviction that Beijing and the viceroy in Canton were either unwilling or unable to suppress it, prompted the president’s decision to begin preparations to send a naval flotilla to China in late 1905. He told the secretary of the navy that the “Chinese are not showing a good spirit. I think that we should have as strong a naval force as possible

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concentrated on the Chinese shore, and as speedily as possible.”69 He also ordered the army to begin preparing for a possible expedition. Roosevelt told Root that he had learned that “the Viceroys made no real effort whatever to stop the boycott. I think we shall have to speak pretty sharply to the Chinese Government.” Planning focused on Canton, where five thousand troops would land, but also included Shanghai and Chefoo.70 Ironically, at the same time that TR was preparing for military action, he was also embarking on a campaign to convince the public that the exclusion policy needed to be reformed, so that he would have enough support to initiate legislation in Congress. Roosevelt argued that the main cause of the boycott was the abusive treatment of Chinese attempting to enter the United States; he had already taken steps to alleviate this problem through executive orders, but these steps were insufficient; and new legislation would be required to secure further progress. In making this case, TR was engaging in a tactic that he developed earlier in his presidency: building (or leveraging preexisting) support among the public to push Congress to support or enact a policy. He was encouraged in this belief by some of his closest advisers. William Howard Taft’s papers, for example, reveal he believed that legislation could be forced through an indifferent or reluctant Congress by marshaling the support of newspapers and other opinion leaders. Taft informed one correspondent about resistance in the Senate to a tariff bill for the Philippines, “The newspapers are shaking up some of the Senators who have taken part in the smothering of the bill, and we are trying as far as we can to cultivate public sentiment.”71 TR believed that a small, determined group, or a unified strand of public opinion, could have a disproportionate and deleterious effect if left unbalanced by a more constructive element. Often during his presidency, this played out in confrontations with a recalcitrant Congress, which TR tried to persuade or even intimidate by harnessing public opinion in favor of a policy. While Congress was still the ultimate target in this case, as it would need to pass legislation to implement fundamental reforms, he considered the real obstacle to be the exclusion movement. The movement counted some congressmen among its ranks and influenced others, but its core was located on the West Coast and among organized labor. In the president’s view, the movement had, up to that point, been unchecked by a competing, cohesive group that supported a more moderate policy. He complained to T. C. Friedlander, secretary of the Merchants’ Exchange in San Francisco, that the main problem lay “with the public opinion which demanded this harsh treatment . . . while there existed no sufficient body

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of public opinion on the other side even to call attention in effective way to the abuses.”72 Therefore, TR sought to mobilize business organizations, churches, missionary societies, and most of the important newspapers east of the Rocky Mountains. Even if he could not persuade the leaders of the exclusion movement of the need for reform, he could use the weight of those who favored reform as a base for drafting a new policy. Then Roosevelt would have sufficient public support to push legislation through Congress. Or so he hoped.

Exclusion and Congress Roosevelt began to lay the groundwork for this strategy as early as June 1905, when he advised a delegation from the American Asiatic Association that if they wanted a more moderate exclusion policy, “you must address your Senators and Representatives in Congress.” In late August, he urged Senator George C. Perkins to work “through you and other friends, to secure rational action by Congress in legislation and treaties.” Similarly, he informed T. C. Friedlander that his administration had already done all it could to stop the boycott. Now, TR argued, it was up to men such as Friedlander to convince their “own representatives in the Senate and the House” to “do away with the cause of the boycott.” At the same time, he tried to cover his flank by assuring proexclusion congressmen from California, such as Representatives Julius Kahn and Everis Hayes, that he was a stronger supporter of exclusion than was commonly believed. The president advocated the exclusion of all Chinese laborers and the immediate deportation of any exempted Chinese who were found working as laborers.73 Roosevelt began to tout the merits of reform in the autumn. Taft sent a statement to the Churchman that delineated specific points a new, less harsh, exclusion treaty might include. A  few days later, TR told southern cotton manufacturers in Atlanta that in order to stop the boycott, he would “need the assistance of the Congress. . . . Our laws and treaties should be so framed,” he continued, “as to guarantee to all Chinamen save of the excepted coolie class the same right of entry to this country and the same treatment while here as is guaranteed to citizens of any other nation.” In his annual message in early December, the president urged Congress to “frame our laws and treaties . . . to state that we will admit all Chinese, except . . . Chinese skilled or unskilled laborers.” In testimony before the House Committee on Appropriations, Secretary Root told Congress, “The President has remedied the administration, I think, just as far as the law permits him to do, and the thing to be done

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now is for you to change the law in some respects.” He gave similar testimony to the House Committee on Foreign Affairs.74 The Foster bill, which would have barred skilled and unskilled laborers but admitted all other Chinese, was introduced on January 24. At first, it seemed to have considerable momentum. The bill followed TR’s recommendations, was largely drafted by the American Asiatic Association, and had the support of business organizations, churches, and missionary societies.75 However, shrewd observers were already predicting that the bill stood little chance of passing, given the strength of exclusion sentiment among organized labor and on the West Coast.76 Undaunted by such pessimism, the president took his case to the most implacable opponents of reform, beginning with the AFL and allied labor organizations. TR told these men that while he strongly supported the exclusion of Chinese laborers, he would do everything in his power to ensure that all other Chinese could enter the United States and that they would be treated well when they arrived. Summoning the full force of his persuasive powers, TR told the audience that he had “a right to challenge you as good American citizens to support” the bill, that he would “stand unflinchingly for it,” and that “no laboring man” had “anything whatever to fear from” it.77 Meanwhile, exclusion hardliners and those who sought a more moderate policy battled to shape public perceptions. Samuel Gompers, who believed that the Foster bill would “in effect reverse the entire [exclusion] policy,” took the lead for those who wanted to maintain the status quo. Beginning in November, his American Federationist argued against altering the exclusion law, underlining the threat that he believed Chinese labor posed to the nation’s workers and its way of life. In Gompers’s view, the Chinese and their unscrupulous allies in the United States would use any relaxation of the law to flood the country with Chinese laborers. Gompers delivered a similar message to the annual convention of the American Federation of Labor in Pittsburgh. The Japanese and Korean Exclusion League also played an important role in opposing the Foster bill, passing resolutions and inundating Congress with petitions.78 On the other side, TR was able to rely on a range of groups that supported reform. Silas D. Webb, president of the American Asiatic Association, noted that he had “assurances of the ready co-​operation of the chief commercial organizations of the country” in pursuing a campaign to pressure Congress. Senator Ben Tillman, a Democrat from South Carolina, introduced a resolution that portrayed the boycott as a result of abuses stemming from a flawed policy and asked the Committee on Immigration to investigate and suggest any “advisable” remedies (though western senators blocked the resolution’s

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more pointed language before it was sent to committee). Charles Eliot, president of Harvard University, spoke in favor of reform.79 Influential editorial pages on the East Coast also supported Roosevelt’s policy.80 A bitter debate between exclusionists and moderates at the National Civic Federation’s Conference on Immigration in December 1905 ended in a draw. The final draft of a resolution did not advocate admitting all Chinese except for skilled and unskilled laborers, as the president’s allies had sought, but excepted “Chinese students, business men, and professional men of all kinds, not only merchants, but bankers, doctors, manufacturers, professors, and travelers” from the exclusion law, which was a broader definition than Gompers and his allies would have liked.81 In the end, however, the president failed in his efforts to translate broad support for a more moderate exclusion policy into a cohesive bloc that would convince Congress to act. By late March 1906, the Foster bill had stalled as California’s congressional delegation secured a promise that it would not be reported out of committee in the current session. The exclusion policy continued, largely unchanged, for the remainder of TR’s term.82

Denouement In the meantime, the administration was busy planning for possible military action. The president recognized that there was no public awareness of the preparations—​there was no discussion of an expedition in either the newspapers or TR’s mailbag—​and decided that he needed to educate the country as to why an intervention might be necessary. The first step came in John Callan O’Laughlin’s column in the Chicago Tribune. TR trusted O’Laughlin and often used the journalist to gauge or try to influence public opinion. On December 23, 1905, O’Laughlin reported that Roosevelt had arranged to strengthen naval forces in East Asia and to send a force to Manila with orders to be ready for an expedition if the need arose. In the view of the administration, events in China, starting with the boycott and culminating in the Shanghai riots and the attack on the missionaries, indicated “the prevalence of a strong anti-​foreign sentiment which is national and not local, as in the boxer uprising, and which is likely to call for vigorous action on the part of the western powers.”83 Early in 1906, the administration began in earnest to try to influence the public discussion. In testimony before Congress in early February, Secretary Taft asked the Senate Committee on Appropriations for $100,000 in order to house troops in Manila in case military action became necessary. The

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Department of State revealed that Secretary Taft made the appropriation request at its urging, and Secretary Root informed journalists that while he did not believe that an antiforeigner uprising was “imminent,” he considered it “his duty to pursue the course he has already outlined for the protection of American life and property in China.” Root further argued that because “the Chinese government . . . has . . . not exerted itself fully to prevent the spread of the anti-​American boycott,” he would “continue to urge upon the President and Secretary Taft the adoption of proper military precautions to meet any emergency that may arise.” The Departments of War and the Navy released details of their preparations.84 Meanwhile, officials continued to press Beijing, and, in late February, Root sent Rockhill a series of demands to present to the Chinese. He followed this on March 12 with a specific note of displeasure about the viceroy in Canton. By this point, Beijing was eager to accommodate the administration, and Rockhill’s reports presented their attitude in a positive light. Talk of military action began to subside. From Canton, Consul Lay reported that the gunboats already there would be sufficient to protect U.S. interests.85 As early as mid-​February, TR had been saying publicly and privately that he did not think such a step would be necessary, and in early April he informed General Leonard Wood that the expedition probably would not be needed.86 TR’s track record on handling U.S.-​Chinese relations was mixed. During the boycott, with the notable exception of Chinese-​Americans, he managed to keep the public, or at least those Americans who were paying attention, in his corner. Commercial interests, the group with the most to lose, viewed the administration—​with the partial exception of Minister Rockhill—​as an ally from the beginning, a perception that was accurate, but which the president and his advisers never took for granted. Public anger about the boycott, to the extent that any existed, focused first on the most zealous exclusion advocates, particularly organized labor, and later mostly shifted to the Chinese. As for the potential military expedition, TR also had reason to be satisfied. Criticism remained relatively muted. The American Asiatic Association attacked the idea, but only briefly and never wavered in its support for the administration’s overall policy. Anti-​ imperialist newspapers such as the Springfield Republican and the Evening Post offered more substantial criticism, but the former turned its attention elsewhere after a few editorials, and the latter eventually admitted that “there may be warrant for the formation of an expeditionary corps . . . in the expectation of serious trouble, and the need of protecting Americans.”87 Other commentators seemed to consider the administration’s preparations to be prudent in light of the unrest in

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China. The Independent was “glad that our Government is providing against the danger by strengthening our forces in the Philippines.”88 The New-​York Tribune warned the Chinese that “any repetition of the Boxer episode would have to be met by this country and by the other powers as that one was, and perhaps more vigorously and sternly and with more serious consequences to China.” The New York Times also viewed the administration’s preparations as fully justified.89 At the same time, Roosevelt suffered a setback when the Foster bill stalled. He had mounted a concerted effort to leverage strong support in the business, church, and missionary communities and among members of the cultural and business elite to push the bill through Congress. However, the importance of the issue never seemed to penetrate beyond these groups. One measure of this apparent indifference was the fact that Roosevelt’s mailbag was nearly devoid of any mention of the Foster bill from members of the broader public. In the end, the combination of opposition from organized labor and the West Coast proved to be too strong. It is unclear whether a more successful effort to convince the people of the need for reform would have rendered Congress more willing to consider the bill, which would be the logical conclusion of TR’s analysis of the situation in autumn 1905. However, the available evidence suggests that this is unlikely, and the exclusion policy remained substantially in place until 1965. TR’s failure to secure fundamental reform of the exclusion policy constituted a moderate, though not devastating, defeat. Relations with China proved to be resilient and quickly returned to their normal state. Hence, when he wrote in 1908, “The best way to avert possible peril, commercial or military, from the great Chinese people, is by behaving righteously toward them and by striving to inspire a righteous life among them,” Roosevelt may have been thinking about a different country in East Asia—​ Japan—​because soon after the boycott abated, a crisis with this rising power erupted.90

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Foolish Offensiveness Relations with Japan, 1905–​1 909

In a letter to Henry Cabot Lodge on June 5, 1905, Theodore Roosevelt reflected at length about the potential problems he foresaw in his country’s relationship with Japan. The Japanese had just dealt a shocking defeat to Russia during a naval battle in the Tsushima Strait and seemed poised to win the war that had been raging since early 1904. TR worried that the soon-​to-​be victorious Japanese, with their powerful navy, posed a serious threat to Hawaii and the Philippines. This danger was heightened, he believed, by an interlocking set of political problems. Whereas anti-​Chinese rhetoric and activism had been present in California and elsewhere for several decades, anti-​Japanese sentiment was a new phenomenon. Immigrants from the Land of the Rising Sun had only begun to enter the United States in substantial numbers after 1900. However, the speed with which anti-​Japanese feeling west of the Rocky Mountains coalesced shocked officials in Washington. Several incidents underscored the power of this sentiment. Starting in early 1905, the San Francisco Chronicle, a Republican publication and arguably the West Coast’s most important newspaper, began to warn its readers about the alleged dangers posed by Japanese immigration. It cited racial incompatibility and economic competition as factors that would cause profound discord. Then, in early March, the state legislature passed, by a unanimous vote in both houses, a resolution that urged Congress to limit Japanese immigration and called the Japanese “undesirable” and a “blight” on the state. In May, San Francisco’s labor unions formed the Japanese-​Korean Exclusion League (later known as the Asiatic Exclusion League), under the leadership of Olaf Tveitmoe, who served as Samuel Gompers’s lieutenant on the West Coast. The league began to influence national politics immediately, starting

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with the introduction of a Japanese exclusion bill drafted by two Bay Area congressmen. Even though these bills stalled in committee, they promised to be the first of many such efforts.1 It did not take long for TR to recognize that these sentiments could seriously complicate the country’s relations with the world’s newest great power. He complained to Lodge, “The feeling on the Pacific slope” was “as foolish as if conceived by the mind of a Hottentot.” Not only was it likely to anger the formidable Japanese, it offended his sense of honor, as he believed that the United States should act “in a spirit of generous justice and genuine courtesy toward Japan.” The insulting behavior of “the demagogues” on the West Coast was made worse, in his view, by the unwillingness of many Americans to support further naval expansion. In particular, he was frustrated by the attitudes of “the mugwumps” and one of their leading allies in the Senate, the anti-​imperialist Republican Eugene Hale, who served as chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs.2 This combination of insult and weakness was, in TR’s view, the very definition of a dishonorable—​not to mention foolhardy—​foreign policy, and it could lead to potentially disastrous consequences if relations with Japan soured. This is precisely what happened in late 1906.

Roosevelt and the Japanese There is no surviving evidence regarding Roosevelt’s personal views on Japanese immigration before mid-​1905, possibly because he had none. In May 1905, he wrote to the writer and explorer George Kennan that he did not object to California’s desire for immigration restrictions, which he considered reasonable given the Japanese qualities of “frugality, abstemiousness and clannishness,” which made them “formidable to our laboring class.” However, in his annual message to Congress that year, he argued that the Japanese (along with Europeans) should not be excluded from the United States and should be eligible for citizenship. Though he also favored admitting fewer immigrants overall, and giving preference to those who were skilled or educated, this would apply equally to all nationalities. This stance contrasted with his attitude regarding Chinese laborers, whom he argued should be completely barred from the United States.3 How do we reconcile these two positions? One student of the subject asserts that the answer is straightforward: the president was a racist, and his inclusion of the Japanese in the category of acceptable immigrants stemmed from his fear of that nation’s military power, not any belief that its people

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might make good citizens. However, TR’s understanding of immigration was fluid. It mixed racial notions about the Japanese being too different to ever live peacefully alongside whites with moral indignation about mistreating the Japanese (and other immigrants) and unalloyed admiration for the country’s rapid modernization.4 The evolution of Roosevelt’s approach was a more complex process than has been acknowledged, and the politics of anti-​Japanese sentiment on the West Coast played a key role. In his letter to Kennan, though TR did not oppose in principle immigration restrictions for the Japanese, he objected vehemently to the way the California legislature approached the matter. Instead of couching the resolution in polite terms, legislators phrased it in a manner that would offend. Roosevelt excoriated the Californians for their “foolish offensiveness,” in part, because it was characteristic of what he had come to view as one of the most pernicious tendencies in U.S. foreign policy: engaging in insulting and belligerent rhetoric and actions, while blithely refusing to prepare to deal with the consequences of such behavior. He complained to Kennan that far too many elected officials and members of the press were “doing just exactly the reverse of what I have made the cardinal doctrine of my foreign policy. . . . they talk offensively of foreign powers and yet decline ever to make ready for war.” The president believed that public support would be essential to sustaining his Japan policy, but as early as mid-​1905 he worried that many would not back it. Influential figures seemed to be “wholly unable to grasp, not merely the wisdom, but the common decency of such a policy.” Instead, he wrote to a friend, the British diplomat Cecil Spring Rice, that some would be inclined to “bluster,” or treat “the Japanese as an inferior and alien race.” Either one of these could lead to “disaster,” he argued, if the United States failed “to keep our navy at the highest point of efficiency and size.5 Roosevelt’s anxiety proved to be prescient and his ruminations about how to handle the problem led him to formulate a basic framework for action in case relations worsened. The approach that he developed—​acting with civility and justice toward the Japanese, while projecting an image of strength, preparing for military contingencies, and convincing the public of the need for such tactics—​served as a lodestar during the final years of his presidency.

The San Francisco School Board Crisis The San Francisco earthquake in April 1906 destroyed much of the city. It engendered a lawless atmosphere in which anti-​Japanese agitation thrived. Physical assaults were common, and the Japanese-​Korean Exclusion League

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organized a boycott of Japanese restaurants. In October, the San Francisco school board, under pressure from the Exclusion League, ordered the segregation of Japanese (along with Chinese and Korean) schoolchildren. The consul in San Francisco, Kisaburo Uyeno, complained to local officials and Ambassador Shuzo Aoki made a formal protest to Secretary of State Elihu Root.6 Many newspapers and opposition politicians in Japan reacted angrily.7 The Roosevelt administration indicated that it was sympathetic to Japanese concerns and warned Californians about the potentially serious consequences of their actions. However, even as Tokyo and Washington were signaling that they viewed the segregation order as a significant problem, San Franciscans remained defiant. The city’s main newspapers, the Chronicle, the Examiner, and The Call, all defended the school board or supported anti-​ Japanese policies. They also criticized the administration’s relatively pro-​ Japanese stance. The Chronicle based its support for the school board order on the grounds of states’ rights and what it claimed was “universal public sentiment.”8 Though San Francisco’s newspapers were perhaps the most visible purveyors of anti-​Japanese agitation, the driving force of the movement was organized labor. The American Federation of Labor supported the school board’s order and favored Japanese exclusion.9 However, it allowed the Japanese-​Korean Exclusion League to take the lead. President Olaf Tveitmoe positioned the league as the protector of white Americans against a rising tide of Asian immigration. He argued that if the president tried to force San Francisco’s “boys and girls” to attend schools with Japanese at the “point of Federal bayonets, the old patriotic California spirit may still be heard, and the bones of the pioneers of ’49 may rise from their graves to protect their inheritance for which they fought and left to their children.” The league had links to San Francisco’s city government, which, in 1906, was controlled by the Union Labor Party. Party leader Abe Ruef and Mayor Eugene Schmitz doubtless initiated the school board order, at least in part, in order to distract attention from a forthcoming corruption trial.10 TR was horrified by the segregation order. He wrote to his son that the San Franciscans “insult the Japanese recklessly, and in the event of war it will be the Nation as a whole which will pay the consequences.” He sympathized with Japan’s grievances and was willing to take all reasonable steps to address them. However, he also sought to impress upon Japanese officials the limits of his powers regarding state and local laws, in order to gain their acquiescence to what was shaping up to be a slow, frustrating attempt at resolution.11 He signaled that the administration

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would support a test case being brought in California’s courts to challenge the school segregation order.12 He also showed Ambassador Shuzo Aoki a draft of his annual message to Congress, in which he lavished praise on the Japanese and condemned anti-​Japanese agitation, in general, and the San Francisco school board’s segregation order specifically. He suggested that Congress pass legislation to allow the president to “enforce the rights of aliens under treaties.” These steps, along with a proposal in his annual message to Congress that the Japanese be given the right to citizenship, were designed to mollify Tokyo and to lay the groundwork for a compromise. Roosevelt believed that if he could soothe Japanese feelings sufficiently, they might be open to a mutual agreement whereby each country would exclude the other’s laborers.13 TR’s proposal—​that the Japanese be given the right to citizenship—​was followed by behavior that suggested that he had no intention of actually attempting to implement it. He did not lobby Congress. In early 1907, when the Japanese listed the right to naturalization as a condition for accepting an immigration treaty, the administration rejected the suggestion because, Roosevelt and his advisers felt, it would be impossible to gain the acceptance of Congress for such a policy “in the present hot-​headed condition of some of its members.” By mid-​June, the president was writing indignantly to Henry White “it is quite out of the question for” the Japanese “to say that we . . . must permit them to be naturalized.”14 This reversal has led some to conclude that Roosevelt proposed the right to naturalization only as a sop to the Japanese. However, the reality was more complicated. The president’s initial support for, and subsequent abandonment of, naturalization for Japanese was a case of his retreating in the face of perceived opposition from the public and Congress to a policy that he considered prudent, but not essential. TR proposed naturalization for Japanese who were not laborers chiefly for the effect such an announcement would have on Japanese public opinion—​and the Japanese sought it for the same reason.15 However, he also genuinely believed that educated Japanese deserved the right to citizenship—​as he argued in his annual message to Congress in 1905—​and that proposing this would be a useful component in his comprehensive approach to maintaining good relations. He wrote to Lyman Abbott, editor of The Outlook, a proadministration weekly, the Japanese should be given “the franchise and school facilities” and “in other ways” treated “as well as possible.” This would ease the sting of barring laborers and was the best way to “avoid injuring Japanese self-​respect and keep the relations of the two countries good.” The fact that the president favored

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naturalization for nonlaboring Chinese lends additional support to the notion that he believed certain classes of Asians deserved citizenship.16 In order to prepare the public for his proposal, TR began to lay the groundwork with opinion leaders such as Abbott, David Starr Jordan, president of Stanford University, and Harrison Gray Otis, owner of the Los Angeles Times. In the end, Roosevelt dropped his naturalization proposal because he realized that it would command little support nationally and would arouse virulent opposition from Californians. Even Abbott and Jordan, staunch allies who strongly opposed the exclusion movement, objected to the idea of offering the Japanese citizenship.17 Aside from a few anti-​imperialist and New York newspapers, there was little editorial support, and apparently no backing in Congress, for the idea. What was more, congressmen and editors from both parties and all regions of the country actively opposed the proposal, with California’s congressional delegation voicing particular hostility.18 Even as Roosevelt was striving to gain Japanese trust, he sought to ready the United States to defend itself. Part of this process focused on preparing the military for combat. For instance, he asked naval officials for a comparison of the U.S. and Japanese navies and for war plans in the case of hostilities. Building political support for modernizing the navy would be crucial, so the president began lobbying senators and representatives about the need to build a new type of warship. The massive new Dreadnought, built by the British, was the first example of the so-​called all-​big-​g un battleship.19 An international naval race had begun, and the president was determined that the United States should not fall behind.20 Foremost among the men TR cultivated was Eugene Hale, the anti-​ imperialist senator from Maine who chaired the Committee on Naval Affairs. Roosevelt urged Hale to support building two dreadnoughts, citing the possibility of friction with Japan and the certainty that other powers would construct all-​big-​g un ships. He warned that the actions of “mobs and demagogs” in California could “embroil” the United States in a conflict with a powerful adversary. One historian suggests that the president neither believed the arguments contained in his letter to Hale nor anticipated war with Japan during his tenure, and was exaggerating in order to sway the senator. Although TR was not above using scare tactics to win votes, his apprehension was genuine. He feared that there was a real risk of hostilities, given the ferocity of anti-​Japanese sentiment in California, and he considered keeping the navy at a world-​class level to be essential to the nation’s security. Failure to arm the country sufficiently, he believed, would increase the chances of an attack by Japan. In the end, the president

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only asked for one dreadnought and, despite Hale’s opposition—​and dismissal of the warning about Japan—​Congress granted the president’s request with only minor resistance.21 Nevertheless, the stage had been set for future disagreements over naval expansion and the president’s portrayal of the Japanese threat. TR also sought to influence public perceptions of the standoff in San Francisco. His message was multifaceted. Japan’s history of friendship with the United States and its status as a civilized nation and military power meant that its citizens should be treated courteously and justly. At the same time, Roosevelt emphasized that he would protect national interests if they were threatened and, to that end, he underlined the need to keep up naval expansion.22 The president argued that most of the public supported his opposition to the anti-​Japanese agitation.23 Finally, TR asked Californians to consider the fact that their actions were harming the nation’s interests by straining relations with a crucial country. He warned that, in the long run, angering Japan would be more harmful to them than to the rest of the country, given that their commercial interests were disproportionately focused on Asia.24 The methods TR and other members of the administration used to promote this narrative underscore the degree of sophistication with which he now approached the task of influencing public sentiment. As was often the case, the press played a prominent role. Reporters such as John Callan O’Laughlin, Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune, and Montgomery Schuyler, of the New York Times, received inside information from the administration and subsequently wrote helpful articles. In late October, O’Laughlin wrote a long piece that emphasized several points. The president intended to “scrupulously” fulfill all of the nation’s treaty obligations vis-​à-​vis Japan. He would nevertheless not “budge an inch” regarding areas of disagreement where he felt the United States was in the right. TR also linked the current tension in relations with Japan to the necessity of naval preparedness, especially the need for “hastening of the work of constructing the Panama canal” and for “large ships” to “be added to the navy.”25 At other times, officials spoke directly to the press or made public diplomatic documents. For instance, a telegram from Secretary of State Root to Ambassador Luke Wright in Tokyo was released to the press in the United States and Japan. It emphasized the president’s determination to ensure that the Japanese would be given the same treatment “accorded to the people of the most friendly European nation” and declared that “the people of the United States” fully agreed with this sentiment.26

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Public speeches provided another useful tool for influencing perceptions. The annual message to Congress on December 3, 1906, and addresses given by Root in Philadelphia and TR at Harvard University reiterated the administration’s message. These speeches were designed to refute one of the main arguments wielded by school exclusion advocates. Roosevelt told his audience, “States’ rights should be preserved when they mean the people’s rights, but not when they . . . stand for wrong or oppression of any kind or when they stand for national weakness, or impotence at home or abroad.”27 Finally, the president and his advisers contacted opinion makers and members of local elites, particularly in California. In a letter to Harrison Gray Otis, the president emphasized his strong opposition to the San Francisco school board’s exclusion order and his belief that educated Japanese should be given the right to naturalization—​that Japan “should be treated with exactly the same consideration that we show to any European nation.” However, he also stressed his determination to secure “the exclusion of Japanese laborers from the United States” and his commitment to naval expansion. Like Otis, he agreed that the United States should “not ‘get down on our bellies’ ” in attempting to placate the Japanese.28 Even as he was publicly scolding Californians, the president was negotiating with leading figures in the anti-​Japanese movement. Though he abhorred their perspective, he had come to appreciate the racial and economic factors that drove it. He wrote to his son that the dispute was “primarily due to labor competition, but complicated by genuine race feeling.” Yet his ability to check it was limited. “I am not speaking about the rights of the attitude, but the attitude, and how we have to deal with it,” he confided to Andrew White. “The people of the Pacific Coast would without a moment’s hesitation accept war rather than unrestricted Japanese immigration . . . the labor question inflames our wageworkers to the point of madness, especially when complicated with racial antipathy.”29 TR’s anxiety about the fervor of this sentiment was a crucial factor in the evolution of his stance—​from reluctantly accepting that the exclusion of Japanese laborers might be necessary to actively attempting to implement it as soon as possible. He knew from conversations with leading figures in organized labor that their main goal was the exclusion of Japanese laborers and that, if this were accomplished, they would be open to overturning the San Francisco school board’s segregation order. Therefore, he believed that any solution to the standoff in San Francisco would have to address Japanese immigration. To this end, Roosevelt and his advisers explored potential areas of compromise with men such as Olaf Tveitmoe and Samuel Gompers

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and emphasized the president’s recognition that labor had to be protected from Japanese competition. In a meeting with Tveitmoe, Secretary of the Navy Victor Metcalf floated the idea of instituting an age limit on Japanese students in San Francisco’s schools. This would prevent teenage and adult Japanese from attending alongside white children—​a common complaint of school segregation proponents. With Gompers, TR shared his “purpose to secure a treaty with Japan” for the mutual exclusion of Japanese and U.S. laborers.30 The president sought to repair his relationship with Congress in the aftermath of his annual message, in which he had called the San Francisco school board’s segregation order a “wicked absurdity” and vowed to protect the rights of Japanese in California by force if necessary. Roosevelt’s tough rhetoric caused uneasiness in both chambers, and something approaching a consensus emerged that he had overstepped his prerogatives in seeking to intervene in San Francisco’s management of its schools. TR offered an olive branch by revealing his intention to seek an agreement that would exclude Japanese laborers. At the same time, he warned California’s congressional delegation that war with Japan was a distinct possibility if no way out of the impasse was found. Roosevelt imparted this admonition confidentially, but it was quickly leaked. A minor war scare ensued—​the San Francisco Examiner, for example, warned “roosevelt sees war ahead”—​and Secretary of War Taft felt compelled to deny that there was any risk of hostilities. The president explained that only after the school board’s segregation order was rescinded could a treaty, or some other vehicle for the exclusion of Japanese laborers, be negotiated. New legislation from Congress was ruled out because, even though Roosevelt believed that the United States had the right to exclude Japanese laborers under the terms of a treaty signed in 1894, he worried that such an approach would be needlessly provocative.31 Swayed by these arguments, California’s congressional delegation agreed to support TR’s approach. At the president’s request, they invited San Francisco’s school board and Mayor Schmitz to Washington. In a series of talks beginning in early February, Roosevelt sought to convince the Californians of the need to rescind the segregation order. At the same time, he and his advisers decided that the best way to restrict Japanese laborers, absent a treaty, would be to prohibit them from entering the continental United States from the most common point of embarkation, Hawaii.32 An amendment empowering the president to do this was attached to a pending immigration bill, and the San Franciscans agreed to rescind the segregation order as soon as the bill was passed. In addition, the Japanese foreign minister, Tadasu Hayashi, agreed to

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enforce an order that was already in place, whereby Tokyo issued no passports to Japanese laborers for the continental United States. This concluded the first stage of the so-​called Gentlemen’s Agreement and ended the standoff over the school board’s segregation order.33

Public Opinion, the Press, and Relations with Japan in Mid-​1907 With the conclusion of the first part of the Gentlemen’s Agreement and the revocation of the segregation order, the first crisis in U.S.-​Japanese relations passed. However, in the summer of 1907, confrontation once more seemed imminent as two incidents in San Francisco stoked Japanese anger. In late May, several Japanese restaurants and a Japanese bathhouse were attacked during a streetcar strike. Next, the Japanese consul complained about the Board of Police Commissioners’ refusal to grant licenses to Japanese who wished to open employment agencies. Even though some administration officials viewed the attacks as random acts of violence stemming from the unrest and believed that the Board of Police Commissioners was acting within its rights under the treaty of 1894, TR and Secretary of State Elihu Root moved quickly to defuse the situation. They ordered investigations into the employment agency dispute and the attacks and sought to ensure that Japanese in California were protected.34 Much of the tension that emerged in the wake of these incidents was probably the result of sensational press coverage. Newspapers in both countries highlighted the most inflammatory items and ran lurid editorials. This was particularly true in Japan, where the latest unpleasantness was commonly viewed as an extension of the school segregation issue. Ambassador Wright reported that many Japanese were displeased with the resolution of that issue because it entailed the imposition of further immigration restrictions. Meanwhile the opposition party, Kenseihonto, attacked the government over the alleged mistreatment of the nation’s citizens. Most leading U.S. publications downplayed the tension, interpreting it as the work of sensationalist newspapers and ambitious opposition politicians in Japan. The American Monthly Review of Reviews argued that the threat of war had been “grossly exaggerated,” and the Springfield Republican dismissed it as “a yellow fantasy.”35 However, a number of influential dailies drew alarmist conclusions, based largely upon the tough language of Japan’s opposition party and press.

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Figure  6.1  Puck cover from 1907 highlighting the influence of sensationalist newspaper coverage in shaping U.S.-​Japanese relations. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

William Randolph Hearst’s papers ran front-​page stories with headlines such as “Ominous Talk in Tokio [sic]” and “Japs Call for War to Protect Their Countrymen on Pacific Coast.” The New York Herald advised readers that Japanese spies had infiltrated the Philippines and that the local population was “with them.” The Herald also began calling on the administration to concentrate “the entire American navy in the Pacific, where it might prove efficacious in maintaining peace and would certainly be invaluable in the event of war.” In addition, rumors spread that Japanese spies were casing military installations, and claims abounded that many Japanese immigrants

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were ex-​soldiers who were ready to rearm at a moment’s notice.36 Even international observers believed that war was inevitable. Reports from abroad warned of Japanese plans to attack the Philippines and the West Coast.37 Many businessmen viewed this renewed tension with dismay. Particularly unnerving for them was a letter from the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, sent to chambers of commerce across the United States, which warned that “should the progress of the trade and commerce between the two nations be at any time obstructed as the result of the unwarranted action of [a]‌small local population, the loss to be sustained by the two countries would be incalculable.”38 Reaction was almost immediate. T. C. Friedlander, secretary of the Merchants’ Exchange in San Francisco, informed Secretary Root that his organization did “not favor any Immigration Law that will discriminate against the people of Japan” and that they wanted there to be “no barriers to the most friendly trade relations between the two countries.” Root received similar messages from the San Francisco and Boston Chambers of Commerce.39 Businessmen also directly assured the Japanese of their goodwill.40 In response, officials sought to reassure the business community. The president directed Root to liaise with the New  York Chamber of Commerce. However, by this point, TR and his advisers had become convinced that Tokyo bore most of the responsibility for easing tensions. Only if Japan began to decrease the number of its citizens traveling to the United States, Roosevelt felt, would the anti-​Japanese agitation begin to decline. They would have “to urge more strongly upon the Japanese Government the need of restricting the total number of passports,” he told Root, or they would face “at least a very dangerous agitation in Congress next year for their total exclusion.”41 The administration’s inclination to take a sterner line was apparent in the manner that it sought to influence the business community’s response. In early July, the third assistant secretary of state, Huntington Wilson, wrote a series of memoranda that argued, among other things, that the United States had a right to exclude Japanese laborers. He also urged the administration to adopt a tougher line and proposed tactics for assuaging the concerns of exclusion advocates. Though some historians have depicted Wilson as excessively anti-​Japanese and even ill-​suited for diplomatic work, at the time Roosevelt was impressed with what he called “Wilson’s admirable memorandum.” He concurred with much of its reasoning and quoted some of it in exchanges with Tokyo. Wilson composed a draft response that was designed to answer the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce’s warning. Wilson hoped that it would “influence the replies of the other American Chambers.” The letter defended U.S. immigration policy and sought to

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rebut the “exaggerated view” of the situation in San Francisco that had been conveyed to the Japanese.42 The president and his advisers also sought to dampen the war scare. This was in keeping with the delicate balance the administration tried to strike between 1906 and 1909. In private conversations and correspondence, they emphasized their genuine concern about the tension in relations with Japan to try to persuade Congress to increase spending on the navy. At the same time, they publicly downplayed the possibility of hostilities in order to lessen anxiety among the broader public. One of the most important steps in this regard was a speech given by Root in the capital in April 1907 that was widely circulated.43 The secretary of state was Roosevelt’s most important adviser during the series of crises in relations with Japan. Even though William Howard Taft emerged as TR’s handpicked successor, there is considerable evidence that the president actually preferred Root. However, according to Root’s biographer, he was not interested in the presidency, and, in addition, TR concluded that the corporate lawyer from New York would not be as electable as Taft. There is no question that Roosevelt held Root in the highest regard—​he called his secretary of state “the best man” in the country for the position—​and relied to a considerable extent upon his skill and advice.44 Root reinforced the emphasis that TR placed upon the need to counterbalance what both viewed as the pernicious influence of Democrats, mugwumps, and sensational newspapers by educating the public. In early June, for instance, he complained to the president about the “leprous vampires” in the press who were “eager to involve their country in war in order to sell a few more newspapers.” Years later, in an essay published in Foreign Affairs, Root elucidated a set of ideas that closely resembled those of Roosevelt in the latter stages of his presidency. He acknowledged the considerable influence wielded by the public in modern diplomacy and asserted that this necessitated the “pressing demand for popular education in international affairs.”45 The war scare reinforced for Roosevelt the challenges that he faced. Too many Americans, he complained to Hermann Speck von Sternburg, suffered “in aggregated form from all the evils attendant upon our luxurious, pleasure-​loving, industrial, modern civilization.” Such a condition was particularly worrisome when confronted with a potential foe like Japan, which was a “formidable military power.” Similarly, in reaction to the Second Hague Conference that began in mid-​June, TR expressed contempt for “extreme advocates of peace,” such as Senator Hale and the Evening Post and Nation, whose propensity to combine a “sentimental humanitarianism” with a “gross

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Figure 6.2  Elihu Root, approximately 1902. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

sentimentalism and the lack of power to look afar” impeded his efforts to combine just and courteous behavior with military preparedness.46 Even worse, he believed, was the tendency to engage in belligerent and insulting behavior toward foreigners, while at the same time neglecting the national defense. This inclination was most obvious in men such as Samuel Gompers, who loudly and often insultingly advocated Chinese and Japanese exclusion but was also a vocal pacifist.47 TR was, if anything, even more appalled by men such as Hale, who failed to condemn the destructive rhetoric and conduct of the more extreme anti-​Japanese campaigners while at the same time hindering naval expansion.

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In spite of these misgivings, the president never doubted the overall soundness of the U.S. system of government and never begrudged the need to maintain widespread public support. He wrote to Henry White, regarding his decision to station troops near San Francisco in case they were required to protect the Japanese, “In a democracy like ours a public servant must continually keep in mind not only what the letter of the law permits, but how far he can arouse and guide public sentiment so that it will justify him.” In addition, Roosevelt’s faith in the common sense and courage of most Americans never wavered. He confided to Hermann Speck von Sternburg that he retained “a strong belief in the fundamental good sense and the manliness of the American people; and in spite of all violent oscillations before a crisis, I think that when a crisis comes they will rise to meet it.”48 This perspective formed the basis of the administration’s strategy during the war scare. In his speech in Washington in April, Root emphasized that treaties overrode state laws and, despite the tension between the administration and officials in San Francisco, there was no threat of hostilities.49 Newspapers reported that the secretary of state saw not “the least danger of war or even a breach of the friendly relations that now exist between the United States and Japan.” TR and his allies blamed the latest crisis on sensationalist reporting. As one daily with access to the administration reported, “President Roosevelt and his principal advisers are satisfied that there is no prospect of a conflict unless the jingo press . . . succeeds after long effort in producing enough pin pricks to turn the present cordial feeling into distrust and enmity.” TR lunched with Ambassador Aoki and Admiral Gombei Yamamoto and afterward issued a press release that emphasized the “the thoroly [sic] good understanding between the two Governments and the fundamental friendliness between the two nations.”50 At the same time, the administration made it clear that the president had every intention of protecting Japanese rights but would not sacrifice the country’s vital interests to do so. This message was directed at the Japanese as much as at the public. The Evening Star reported that “Japanese representatives here . . . will be made to understand that the friendship of the President for Japan is not to be reckoned upon to the extent of yielding to any sort of demand the Japanese may make.” Officials also wanted the public to know that they were unperturbed by the belligerent rhetoric of some Japanese politicians and newspapers. “The President and Secretary of State are said to be in further agreement in letting the Japanese people talk all they want to without paying any attention to it.”51

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The Fleet Cruise On July 2, 1907, newspapers began to report that the administration planned to transfer the battleship fleet to the Pacific. Officials confirmed this two days later.52 The fleet had been kept in the Atlantic for a variety of practical and strategic considerations. One was the belief that the most likely threat would arise from a European power—​especially Germany—​acting in the Caribbean. Even in the event of a threat from an Asian nation, according to Mahanian doctrine—​which held that naval power should be concentrated—​it would be better to transfer the fleet to the Pacific en masse rather than meet the enemy at less than full strength. As early as 1903, Mahan had called for stationing the fleet in the Pacific and, in the wake of the Russo-​Japanese War, a debate began about the disposition of warships. This intersected in the summer of 1907 with contingency planning for war with Japan, known as the Orange Plan. The result was, among other things, a recommendation by the General Board of the navy that the battle fleet be concentrated and transferred to the Pacific as soon as possible.53 TR not only embraced this advice, he decided that the voyage to the Pacific should be the first leg on a cruise around the world. He believed that it would provide an invaluable opportunity to test the fleet’s performance in peacetime, so that it would be at a high state of readiness in the event of war. In addition, the president viewed the expedition as a necessary show of strength. He believed that Tokyo interpreted his attempts to mollify them as indicating weakness and even fear. Finally, he believed that the cruise would garner vital publicity. He wrote to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Truman Newberry that the cruise would be a “striking thing. The people I hope will be interested in it, and in no way can their interest be better stimulated, with better result to the Navy, than by properly writing it up.” It would, TR hoped, build support for naval expansion and other initiatives, such as upgrading facilities. The unprecedented voyage might instill some martial vigor in his countrymen and could boost his party’s political standing.54 The president invested considerable time and effort in maximizing publicity for the cruise. As a matter of course, journalists would accompany the fleet. It was essential that these be men who the administration could “entirely trust.” Though TR’s initial choices, such as favored journalists or James Connolly, a well-​known author of sea stories, were rejected for practical reasons, the cruise benefitted from extensive coverage, with dispatches from the Sun’s Franklin Matthew reaching tens of millions of readers.55

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The battleship cruise also generated strong opposition, particularly from two New York newspapers, The Sun and The World. The president derisively dubbed this the “Wall Street campaign.” However, it is unclear how much of the criticism reflected the New York business community’s displeasure with Roosevelt’s increasingly progressive policies and how much of it was driven by partisanship, on the part of the Democratic World, and ideological hostility, on the part of the conservative Sun.56 Either way, both papers adopted a strikingly hostile tone. The Sun accused Roosevelt of everything from “mendacity” to sending the fleet to the Pacific “for war with Japan.”57 The anti-​imperialist and mugwump faction also attacked TR’s plan. Journals such as the Evening Post, its sister publication The Nation, and the Springfield Republican worried that the fleet cruise would increase the likelihood of war with Japan—​“Nothing could have been devised more calculated to concentrate the public mind upon the notion of war,” complained the Republican—​and that it would, perhaps intentionally, bolster the case for naval expansion.58 Surprisingly, prominent peace activists such as Andrew Carnegie were quiet, though William Jennings Bryan registered his opposition and the Advocate of Peace, a Boston periodical, urged the president to rethink the planned cruise.59 More troubling for Roosevelt, who expected criticism from the Post and the Republican, was the opposition of Senator Hale, the influential chair of the Committee on Naval Affairs. Hale was an expert with years of experience, and other committee members were relatively indifferent to their portfolio because the Speaker, Joe Cannon, ironically only appointed men who had no naval yards in their states. Thus, TR viewed the senator as the key figure in Congress on naval issues and had been cultivating the Republican from Maine for months.60 Nevertheless, Hale publicly questioned the Navy Board’s motivation for seeking the fleet redeployment, asserting that it had exploited the war scare with Germany earlier and was now attempting “the same performance with Japan.” He also warned that funding for the fleet cruise had not been allocated by Congress and would therefore be unlawful.61 To make matters worse, attempts to publicize the fleet cruise began inauspiciously when the administration botched the announcement. The press had been reporting since mid-​June that the administration was considering sending battleships to the Pacific, and on July 1 and 2 detailed descriptions appeared in print. In response, the president’s secretary, William Loeb, told reporters that no cruise was planned or even considered.62 Then, on July 4, Secretary of the Navy Victor Metcalf, in a transparent bid to boost his standing in his home state, announced in California that the fleet would indeed sail to

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the Pacific. Meanwhile, the president’s statement to the press on the same day listed the Pacific Ocean as only one potential destination. Finally, on August 1, Loeb announced that the fleet was definitely going to the Pacific. The president further clouded the picture when he told reporters that the fleet would not necessarily go to the Pacific—​even though he had privately decided by July 10, at the latest, that it would.63 Some historians have argued that what appeared to be confusion was actually skilled press management. In one version, the early leaks were efforts to test public reaction to the cruise. An alternate interpretation portrays the conflicting announcements as part of a ploy designed to confuse critics.64 These assertions overlook some crucial facts. Though the reports on July 1 and 2 may have been trial balloons, Loeb’s emphatic denial on July 2 indicates, at a minimum, confusion in the administration about the timing of the announcement. In addition, Roosevelt almost certainly did not authorize the earlier leaks and Metcalf ’s speech. The New  York Times reported that the administration was “disconcerted” by Metcalf ’s speech, which was “not expected.” The original plan had been to release details of the voyage slowly over the summer. Throughout his tenure, the president was frustrated by the frequency with which sensitive information was leaked and repeatedly sought to enforce a ban on unauthorized disclosures to the press.65 There was little to be gained from misleading opponents of the cruise as to its destination. In fact, the confusion allowed critics to portray the administration as incompetent, dishonest, and indecisive. A more likely explanation for the delay in confirming the destination is that Roosevelt was keeping his options open until he could fully evaluate the reaction of the public and the Japanese, decide how to proceed with the expedition, and determine how to best publicize it. TR’s subsequent correspondence, which contained extended analyses of each of these factors, supports this interpretation. No stranger to criticism, Roosevelt recovered quickly and responded in a systematic way. He and his advisers presented the cruise as providing necessary training and as a prudent, though not provocative, defensive measure. Metcalf stressed that it was designed to facilitate training and readiness. Admiral George Dewey, the hero of the Battle of Manila Bay, called it a “mission of peace” that, by highlighting the administration’s determination to maintain a presence in the Pacific and to defend U.S. interests there, would deter potential adversaries.66 As always, trusted journalists lent a hand. John Callan O’Laughlin of the Chicago Tribune wrote a lengthy editorial in the wake of the initial announcement. He placed special emphasis on the fact that the cruise was a defensive

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measure, which would allow the administration to negotiate an immigration treaty from a position of strength, and “not . . . a menace to Japan.” A stream of similar articles and editorials followed. In late August, TR invited Lawrence F. Abbott, son of Lyman Abbott and editor of The Outlook, to “lunch . . . so that I can put before you in full all the reasons” for the undertaking. The result was a long editorial in late September in The Outlook that supported the expedition and rebutted its critics at length. In the American Monthly Review of Reviews, Albert Shaw did the same. Other friendly publications, such as the Wall Street Journal and New-​York Tribune, announced their support. The Journal believed that the cruise would be useful both “from the economic” and “from the military standpoint,” while the Tribune viewed the decision to dispatch the fleet with “sincere satisfaction.”67 Roosevelt went so far as to coach publications that unintentionally harmed the cause. He scolded the purveyors of The Navy for oscillating between exaggerated criticism and praise, arguing that such coverage did “harm and not good” and gave “papers like the [Evening] Post, which are desirous only of breaking down the navy, a chance to score a small point.”68 In order to recapture the narrative, a slow but steady stream of information about the fleet cruise was released to the press. The president calculated, correctly, that the public would be smitten with the idea and would eagerly await new details. For example, a press release on August 23 reported that, after a conference between Roosevelt and a number of naval officials, it had been decided that the fleet would consist of sixteen battleships, would probably depart in December, and would go through the straits of Magellan, up to San Francisco, and probably on to Puget Sound. The report also noted that the administration had yet to decide the route by which the fleet would return to the Atlantic.69 TR solicited support in Congress. He asked Senator Jonathan Bourne, a Republican from Oregon, to “organize the Pacific slope and Rocky Mountain Senators” in case Hale sought to block the cruise. Likewise, he wrote to Representative E. A. Hayes, a Republican from California, “If any attack is made upon me in Congress, I assume that the Pacific Slope Representatives will desire to make some answer.” Roosevelt even courted unlikely allies such as Ariosto Appling Wiley, a Democratic member of the House from Alabama.70 TR was enraged by Hale’s opposition and frustrated that his earlier tactic of consulting the senator had failed. He believed that if Hale succeeded in preventing the cruise, he would damage the navy and make an attack by Japan more likely, because it would be a sign of weakness.

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The president complained to Attorney General Charles Bonaparte, “To keep the navy and army as inefficient as [Hale] desires and to show abject cowardice in the presence of foreigners . . . may be to court the very disaster he fears.” He decided not to confront Hale because he believed, he told Root, that “it is worthless to communicate with him” (though TR did ask Melvin Stone, general manager for the Associated Press, to reason with Hale). Roosevelt excoriated the Republican from Maine in the most vicious terms in his correspondence, calling him a “conscienceless voluptuary” who was as “astute as he is unscrupulous,” an “arrant physical coward,” a “fool” when it came to formulating foreign and defense policy, and a man “without one scrap of patriotism.”71 The president also criticized anti-​ imperialists, mugwumps, peace advocates, Wall Street denizens, and members of the northeastern elite who opposed the fleet cruise, but Hale became the focus of his ire. For Roosevelt, he came to personify the worst attributes of those who dared to oppose naval expansion. TR complained to Lodge that Hale wanted to oversee the country’s defense policy with a “system of supervision based upon the proceedings of the Aulic Council of Vienna and flavored with the spirit of [prominent pacifist] Moorfield Storey’s Anti-​Imperialist League, plus the heroism of the average New York financier.” Roosevelt repeated these insults to such a wide number of people—​some of whom were not intimates—​that they must have reached Hale. It almost seems as if he hoped they would. For a politician who was often brilliant in his ability to co-​opt opponents, it was unproductive—​even bizarre—​behavior and may have been a product of overconfidence that emerged during his second term. A British diplomat reported to London in early 1906 that TR was “amazingly indiscreet in the way that he talks about his political opponents. He freely describes them to his visitors, and they know that he describes them, as fools and scoundrels.”72 Despite TR’s frustration, it was soon apparent that the planned fleet cruise commanded widespread support among the public. This was especially true on the West Coast. The Portland Chamber of Commerce urged the president “most strongly” to schedule a fleet visit in their city. Many newspapers west of the Rockies registered their approval. The San Francisco Chronicle declared, “Hail to the biggest stick!” while the Los Angeles Herald predicted that the cruise would “cool the caloric of Japanese jingoism.”73 There were also indications of support from other parts of the country. The Constitution of Atlanta, for instance, saw “every justification in sober reason” for the fleet cruise. Even The Sun eventually moderated its criticism. By early September, Roosevelt could write to Henry Cabot Lodge, “The people as a whole have

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Figure 6.3  Eugene Hale, 1910. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

been extremely well pleased at my sending the fleet to the Pacific.” He was so confident of public support that he could challenge Congress regarding funding. “We have money enough to get the fleet to the Pacific,” he declared in October. “If the appropriation is then exhausted the question of getting it back will depend upon another appropriation being made.”74 The administration welcomed indications that the Japanese were reacting phlegmatically to news of the deployment.75 The president used backchannels—​such as John Callan O’Laughlin, who was in frequent contact with Japanese officials—​to reinforce the message that the United States harbored no belligerent intent and to discredit sensationalist headlines

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in newspapers such as The Sun.76 The embassy in Tokyo reported that the Japanese, rather than viewing the cruise as a threat, had concluded that it presented an opportunity for improving relations. The new ambassador, Thomas J. O’Brien, believed that it had a salutary effect on opposition leaders and sensationalist journals in Japan and served to curb some of the more heated rhetoric.77

The Fight for Naval Expansion In spite of the success of the fleet cruise, the president remained uneasy about the state of the navy. He had secured the approval of Congress for the construction of a new dreadnought in early 1907. But, by the end of the year, Roosevelt concluded that that one new ship a year would not suffice, given the unwillingness of powers such as Germany and Britain to agree to limitations on naval expansion at the upcoming Hague Conference. Therefore in his annual message in late 1907, TR urged Congress to provide four new all-​big-​g un battleships in the coming year in its naval appropriations bill. Japan continued to be of special concern. Roosevelt complained to Victor Metcalf, secretary of the navy, “In the present Japanese fleet there are four battleships superior to any four of ours.” He also pushed for additional spending in other areas, such as fortifying Hawaii and building a naval base at Pearl Harbor.78 Crucial constituencies, however, opposed further naval expansion. Resistance to the president’s program, outside of Congress, appears to have been concentrated on the East Coast among peace advocates, the clergy, teachers and academics, businessmen, anti-​imperialists and mugwumps, and the leaders of organized labor.79 These groups raised a number of objections. Some argued that TR’s proposal would undermine the goal of international peace. The Advocate of Peace, for instance, urged “sober, peace-​loving people to speak” out. Others considered it to be profligate. The Springfield Republican called the four-​battleship policy “a waste, an idle luxury, or, at most, an insurance against far-​off events that are more likely to come because of the insurance.” The Evening Post dismissed the president’s explanation that he had not called for naval expansion prior to 1907 because he wanted to give the Hague Conference a chance to reach an agreement as “pure afterthought.” Opponents were also dismayed by Roosevelt’s hints, never fully elucidated in public, that naval expansion was necessary to protect the country against the Japanese. The Constitution disapproved of the president’s “fictitious war scares” and The World mocked TR’s “pious professions of peace,” which, it

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argued, were undermined by his intimations that he had “secret information” that made “it imperative that four new battleships be built immediately.”80 In Congress, opposition to the president’s program transcended party lines. In the House, some inland Republicans and many Democrats resisted the four-​battleship campaign.81 Behind the scenes, Speaker Joseph G. Cannon was also hostile. In the Senate, TR faced resistance from a combination of the Senate leadership, led by Nelson W. Aldrich and Eugene Hale, and most Democrats.82 Roosevelt’s task was complicated by growing awareness, in Congress and among the wider public, that reform was needed in the navy’s promotion system, its organizational structure, and its battleship designs. Some congressmen, such as Hale and Representative George E. Foss of Illinois, chairman of the Committee on Naval Affairs, opposed such changes, while others were reluctant to expand the fleet until the problems were addressed. TR, while sensitive to these concerns, thought that expansion should take precedence over reform, in part, because he believed that, until Americans were sufficiently educated about the need for such action, they would strongly oppose it.83 In addition, the president’s growing enthusiasm for progressive policies, highlighted in addresses to Congress in December 1907 and January 1908, exacerbated tensions in relations with conservative Republicans, especially in the leadership, some of whom might otherwise have been more supportive.84 Roosevelt responded to this formidable opposition using familiar tactics. He sought to mobilize latent public support that could be used as leverage. As the New York Times reported, opponents of the president’s plan in Congress were all too aware that he had “gone to the country over their heads.” In addition, he deployed one of his most trusted surrogates, William Howard Taft. The secretary of war, as he was campaigning for the 1908 election, spoke frequently in support of naval expansion. Recognizing that support for TR’s program was strong in the West and weaker in the Midwest and East—​they ignored the Democratic South—​Taft only spoke east of the Rockies.85 TR answered those who believed the expanded fleet would undermine international peace by pointing out that, though he strongly supported international arbitration, its embrace by other powers was “necessarily slow.” He hoped that, for now, Congress would “take an even more important step toward peace” by appropriating funds “for four battleships.” Similarly, Admiral Dewey challenged those who believed expansion would increase international tension by asserting that “to stop the upbuilding of the navy at the present time would be far more likely to bring on war . . . than would the extension of the fleet to twice its present size.” To those whose opposition

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rested on the need for fiscal restraint, Dewey compared spending money on the navy to providing for adequate police and fire departments. A strong navy “is as sure a guarantee of peace and the maintenance of law and order in international affairs as is an adequate police force in municipal affairs,” he averred, and just as a “well-​equipped fire department insures against loss from destructive fires,” so would naval expansion insure the country “against destructive wars.”86 Building upon this campaign to educate the public, Roosevelt directly lobbied Congress. He had informed Root the previous summer that, in his message in December, he planned to warn the people of the risks of mistreating the Japanese so as to “strengthen the earnest appeal I shall put in another part that we should do everything possible to strengthen our army and navy.” However TR realized he needed to craft this message carefully because, if done in a heavy-​handed manner, it could cause another crisis with Tokyo.87 In the end, he did not frame his annual message in December in this manner, but still managed to stoke fears of conflict. A  series of letters to Joseph Cannon, without ever naming Japan, managed to convey to the Speaker of the House Roosevelt’s concern that war was a possibility for which it would be necessary to prepare.88 Likewise, in an appeal to Congress, he warned a strong navy was necessary so that the country would not be forced to rely upon the forbearance of other powers “at all times and under all circumstances and provocations.” This was, of course, a reference to the anti-​Japanese agitation in California. Allies in Congress were even less discreet. Representative Richmond P. Hobson and Senators Albert J.  Beveridge and Samuel H.  Piles either strongly hinted at, or directly cited, the potential Japanese threat as one of the main reasons for supporting naval expansion.89 In addition to warning obliquely about Japan, the president lobbied individual congressmen. He invited key members from both parties and both chambers to the White House. He wooed wavering Republicans such as Senators Francis E.  Warren—​who was promised that if they succeeded in getting four battleships, one of them would be named after his home state of Wyoming—​and Henry Cabot Lodge. When promises did not suffice, he resorted to threats. Roosevelt warned House members that he would veto the public buildings bill—​which contained that year’s pork—​if they rejected his plan. When it became clear that obtaining four battleships would not be possible, he promised to veto the Senate version of the naval appropriations bill if it did not include funding for two.90 In the end, TR and his allies secured

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funding for two dreadnoughts in 1908, along with the promise of two more each subsequent year.91 Roosevelt’s efforts to cultivate public support for four battleships yielded mixed results. There is considerable evidence that members of many local elites, apart from those on the East Coast, supported the program.92 This was particularly true of the West Coast, where the fleet cruise had bolstered preexisting pronavy feeling.93 An indication of this enthusiasm, and the president’s success in fostering it, is the fact that newspaper editors, ambivalent as late as February, had largely endorsed Roosevelt’s plan by April. Multiple surveys indicated support that transcended party and region.94 What was more, the New York Herald reported that the public inundated congressmen with letters and telegrams in favor of the president’s naval program. This evidence must be viewed with caution, however, because the Herald, a prominent supporter of naval expansion, was hardly a neutral observer and gave no numbers to back up its claim, and other newspapers reported no such activity.95 At the same time, the surge in grass-​ roots support for the four-​ dreadnought program did not reach the same pitch as in at least one other heated foreign policy debate. The fact that the president’s mailbag was devoid of letters from the broader public contrasts sharply with the outpouring of correspondence, particularly from southerners, that reached TR in the aftermath of the intervention in Panama. In the final analysis, he succeeded in harnessing significant public support for his naval program, but not enough to overcome entrenched opposition in Congress. Roosevelt, always a pragmatist, proclaimed that he was happy with the results and that he had never expected to get four battleships.96

Anti-​Japanese Agitation Resumes U.S.-​Japanese relations appeared to have turned the corner by the summer of 1908. In May, the two governments signed an arbitration treaty and treaties for the protection of trademarks in China and Korea. U.S. officials believed that these agreements would further dampen speculation about war. Also in May, Congress voted to accept an invitation to the Tokyo Exposition in 1912, a move TR had encouraged. In June, a disagreement about a mining concession in Korea, which was largely under Japanese control by this point, was settled. Though TR and Root still saw room for improvement regarding Japanese immigration, they believed that the trend was promising. In October, the battleship fleet dropped anchor in Yokohama and was greeted by enthusiastic crowds.97 Finally, in late November, Secretary Root and Japanese ambassador

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Kogoro Takahira exchanged diplomatic notes. They agreed that Washington and Tokyo would respect each other’s territorial possessions in the Pacific and affirmed their commitment to the Open Door principles in China. Some administration officials believed that Japan was violating these principles in Manchuria, but Root, though unwilling to give Japan carte blanche in the region, refused to allow the issue to derail the exchange of notes. Root wrote to one correspondent he was confident the factors that had increased the chances of war in 1906 and 1907 had been “very materially checked.”98 This optimism was shattered by renewed anti-​Japanese agitation in the western United States in early 1909. The epicenter was, once again, California. A  series of anti-​Japanese bills under consideration by the state legislature caused particular concern for policymakers:  a proposal to restrict Japanese landownership, another attempt to impose segregation in schools, and a bill that would have confined Japanese and other Asians to urban ghettos. In addition, anti-​Japanese legislation was proposed or under consideration in Nevada, Oregon, and Montana. Other incendiary incidents included the introduction of a bill in Sacramento that sought the recall of the Japanese consul at San Francisco, as well as an assault on a Japanese man in Berkeley.99 Inflammatory rhetoric from high-​profile figures, newspapers, and organizations once again received national attention. James D. Phelan, former mayor of San Francisco and a leading anti-​Japanese campaigner, told reporters in the national capital that the Japanese were “crowding out the white man on the Pacific coast” and “deteriorating civilization as a whole.” Republican congressman Duncan McKinlay made similar comments. The Asiatic Exclusion League—​formerly the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League—​remained active. Hearst’s San Francisco Examiner ran a series of sensational front-​page headlines, such as “Panama Canal in Peril,” which emphasized the threat of Japanese military power.100 Fortunately, there was also substantial opposition in California to the renewed anti-​Japanese agitation. Business organizations and the chambers of commerce in San Francisco and Los Angeles lobbied the state legislature and passed resolutions condemning the proposed legislation. Farmers and religious groups also registered their displeasure. Ironically, one of the most vocal critics of the legislation was the San Francisco Chronicle, which previously had been among the most prominent anti-​Japanese voices. Though it cited a desire to avoid upsetting the Gentlemen’s Agreement, rather than any newfound respect for the Japanese, the Chronicle nevertheless forcefully argued against passage of the bills, calling them “shockingly imprudent.” The Los Angeles Times also disapproved of the “evil” legislation.101 East of the Rockies,

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editorial opposition was overwhelming, though some of the president’s usual critics considered his response to be clumsy. The World argued that the bills’ drafters had taken a “ridiculous position,” the New-​York Tribune accused them of “offensive discrimination,” and the Evening Post disparaged “the little demagogues who introduced those measures and the big demagogues who exploited them.”102 TR considered the situation potentially catastrophic. He wrote to future congressman William Kent that he was “more concerned over it than over any of the other rather stormy incidents during my career as President.” Some historians have argued Roosevelt overestimated the danger—​noting that the Japanese government and press appear to have been relatively unconcerned—​ but the president believed the situation in California, if not addressed, could devastate Japanese-​American relations.103 TR summoned every opinion-​shaping device in his arsenal in his quest to suppress the legislation. He made the issue the central theme of his last speech in Washington. He wrote letters and sent telegrams. Sympathetic journalists, such as Oscar King Davis of the New York Times, disseminated Roosevelt’s message at the national level. He used meetings at the White House to make his case to potential allies. The president also reached out to a number of groups who might be able to influence the Californians. He asked peace advocates for help, urging their “influential men” to “communicate with people in California.” He sought to mobilize the business and financial communities of the Midwest and East Coast, warning them that if California’s legislation passed, they also would be affected by war with Japan.104 TR also lobbied California’s congressional delegation and other influential political figures from the Bay Area. Frank P. Flint, a Republican senator, served as his lieutenant, and he met Republican representatives Julius Kahn, Everis A. Hayes, James C. Needham, and James D. Phelan. Finally, when other western states debated passing anti-​Japanese legislation, the president asked the senators from Nevada, Democrat Francis G. Newlands and Republican George S. Nixon, and Republican senator William E. Borah of Idaho to restrain their respective legislatures. TR also worked closely with California’s governor, Republican James N. Gillett.105 Roosevelt sought to persuade these men, the public, and California’s legislators that the Gentlemen’s agreement had succeeded in dramatically reducing Japanese immigration; only the federal government could effectively manage this arrangement; the proposed legislation would wreck it; and if it passed, California would harm not only its own interest in reducing the number of Japanese in the state, but also those of the country, by straining

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bilateral relations and increasing the risk of war.106 TR also demonstrated willingness to compromise. He signaled that he would not oppose the alien land bill, as long as a provision were added that exempted all rights secured for foreigners by treaty.107 California was the primary target of TR’s message, but he also acted with the other side of the Pacific in mind. Roosevelt hoped to prevent a repeat of earlier war scares by persuading the Japanese press, government, and public that he was doing everything in his power to suppress the offending legislation. Much of the president’s correspondence during this final episode was released to the press. He confided to Philander C. Knox, the incoming secretary of state, that his telegram to Philip A. Stanton, Speaker of the California assembly—​in which he praised the Japanese execution of the Gentlemen’s Agreement, and promised that if the school exclusion bill were passed, he would immediately challenge it in federal court—​“was really meant almost as much for Japan as for California.”108 The president’s prodigious efforts were decisive. A  series of letters to Gillett, which were made public, slowed the anti-​Japanese legislation. The governor later confided to Roosevelt that without his intervention, the legislation might have passed. There was a final scare when the California State Assembly passed the school exclusion bill in early February. TR reacted rapidly. He warned that its implementation could lead to a dramatic worsening of relations with Japan and would revive fears of a military confrontation. He also sought to demonize those who simultaneously advocated anti-​ Japanese and antinavy policies. In a telegram that was released to the press, TR lambasted Republican senator George C.  Perkins, of California, who had defended the bill, for doing “what he could to hamper us in building up the navy” while at the same time advising “a policy of wanton insult.” The president also appealed directly to the California legislature in his telegram to Stanton. With the president’s support, Stanton and Gillett implored the California assembly to hold a second vote. It did so, and the school exclusion bill was defeated on February 10.109

Public Opinion and Foreign Policy The final foreign policy challenge of Roosevelt’s tenure exemplified the way in which he sought to balance concessions to public opinion with his convictions. TR believed that, at times, it was necessary to accept policies that the public, or key sections of the public demanded, even if those policies complicated relations with other countries. He advised the new secretary of state,

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Knox, in formulating policy regarding Japan, that he would have to “meet the demands which our own people make and which cannot permanently be resisted” while also treating “Japan so courteously that she will not be offended more than is necessary; and at the same time to prepare our fleet in such shape that she will be very cautious about attacking us.” At the same time, regarding certain vital decisions, it was imperative that public opinion be ignored, no matter what the political cost. He warned his successor, Taft, not to divide the battleship fleet prior to the completion of the Panama Canal. This was the error that led to Russia’s defeat in 1905, he noted. On this matter, Taft should “obey no direction of Congress and pay no heed to popular sentiment, no matter how strong.” Besides, public opinion could be fickle, he argued, and a policy that provoked criticism one day could bring encomiums the next.110 The events of early 1909 also highlighted, in TR’s view, challenges facing policymakers. In particular, he believed that the political system discouraged long-​term planning. He complained that the merits of his approach to keeping peace with Japan were “so obvious that it ought not to be necessary to dwell upon it,” but many Americans were “shortsighted and have short memories.”111 He also reiterated his belief that the nature of American political culture allowed members of the political, cultural, and financial elite to mislead a decent but credulous public. In his letter to Taft about preserving an undivided fleet, he warned that opponents of his naval policy would “try to lead public opinion in a matter like this without regard to the dreadful harm they may do the country; and good, but entirely ignorant, men may thus be misled.”112 Such complaints highlighted the extent to which public opinion came to occupy a central place in TR’s thinking over the course of his presidency. To be sure, he had been preaching to the public for more than a decade about issues such as imperialism and naval expansion. But it was only during the latter half of his tenure that Roosevelt began to elucidate in a systematic manner his ideas about public sentiment—​both its strengths and its weaknesses—​ presidential leadership, and foreign policy. This was linked, no doubt, to the increasing emphasis he had begun to place on the need to educate the people about progressive political reform and his belief that the public held the power to revitalize the political system. He wrote to the sociologist Edward A. Ross in 1907, “Public opinion, if only sufficiently enlightened and aroused, is equal to the necessary regenerative task.”113 TR’s faith in the people had not waned. If anything, it had grown in importance—​he viewed the future of the country as depending upon the ability of policymakers to offer responsible and effective leadership. It is not

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a coincidence that such thoughts occupied Roosevelt as he prepared to leave the White House in 1909. He knew how difficult it would be to lead the public without the bully pulpit of the presidency at his disposal. This task—​ already crucial in his mind—​took on even greater urgency after mid-​1914, when war engulfed Europe.

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The Stern, Unflinching Performance of Duty TR and World War I, 1909–​1 919

When Theodore Roosevelt left the White House in March 1909 he wanted, as much as possible, to leave the spotlight to his handpicked successor, William Howard Taft. Although he wrote to Cecil Spring Rice—​who was appointed Britain’s ambassador to the United States in 1912—​that of course he “would have liked to stay on as President” as would have “any strong man,” he looked forward to a more relaxed schedule as a private citizen. He also believed that he would still be able to wield influence on behalf of the “social, industrial, and political” goals for which he had fought over the course of his career. Roosevelt planned to support his family by writing, an activity that he enjoyed and at which he excelled. He was looking forward to leading a lengthy safari expedition to Africa, followed by an extended tour of Europe, as his first act as a former president. It was with excitement, rather than sadness, that he embarked on the next phase of his life.1 TR’s retirement lasted for barely a year, and his attempt to cede leadership of the Republican Party failed. Taft was caught between the increasingly antagonistic progressive and conservative factions in the party, and he did not have his predecessor’s skill in mediating between the two. To Roosevelt’s consternation he (mostly) sided with conservatives. As Taft’s shortcomings became apparent, the former president concluded that only he could save the party. The cleavage between TR and Taft, and between the progressives and conservatives, was clear by August 1910 when Roosevelt gave his famous speech at Osawatomie, Kansas. In “The New Nationalism,” he called for the federal government to ensure the rights of workers and proposed a list of bold

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Figure 7.1  Puck cover from 1909 depicting the widely held perception that Taft would continue TR’s policies. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

reforms, including graduated income and inheritance taxes, workmen’s compensation laws, and national health insurance. He also delivered a warning to conservatives in the final line of the speech, when he argued, “Our public men must be genuinely progressive.”2 One of the episodes that pushed TR into open revolt was his successor’s advocacy, in 1911, of treaties of arbitration with other great powers in all international disputes, including those that concerned questions of vital national interest. For the former president, this was unforgiveable, and he abandoned any pretense of reconciliation. His criticism of the treaties, as

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well as his passionate speeches on domestic matters, heartened progressives and convinced many Republicans that he was the best man to lead the party into the next election.3 Over the next few months, he won many of the primary contests and amassed substantially more delegates than Taft. However, Roosevelt had overestimated the power of popular acclaim to influence GOP insiders. Taft still controlled the party machinery and won the nomination on the first ballot. In response, TR and his delegates bolted the party.4

Figure  7.2  Atlanta Journal cartoon from 1912 underscoring the extent to which the media viewed TR as more newsworthy than other politicians. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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As head of the Progressive Party, Roosevelt oversaw the most successful third-​party candidacy for president in U.S. history, winning 27 percent of the popular vote and eighty-​eight electoral votes. Nonetheless, it was a disaster. It split the Republican Party and allowed Woodrow Wilson to win in an Electoral College landslide. In addition, Democrats increased their majority in the House and took control of the Senate. TR’s candidacy generated deep resentment and, in the future, many Republicans would oppose his leadership in order to discourage similar defections. The scale of this debacle begs the question: why did he leave the party in the first place? After all, he had decided nearly three decades earlier that he would remain a loyal Republican, regardless of the party’s shortcomings, and, after Democrats nominated the progressive Wilson, Roosevelt recognized that he had little chance of winning.5 The former president had always been a reformer, albeit a relatively cautious one, and the resurgence of conservatives during Taft’s tenure convinced him that the Republican Party could not serve, at least at that point, as a vehicle for progressive policies. In addition, TR remained an ambitious politician with a considerable ego and an undiminished moralistic streak. He believed that Taft and the conservatives, through their control of the convention, had stolen a nomination that he deserved.6 His sense of duty also remained strong. Once he decided that Taft did not have the ability to lead the country—​Wilson and the Democrats were even less fit for the job, in his view—​he saw no choice but to enter the fray, even if he saw little chance of victory. His defeat, and the schism in the Republican Party, had profound consequences for the way that the United States responded to the conflict that commenced in Europe in the summer of 1914.

TR and Wilson When the war began, the United States adopted a policy of strict neutrality, and the president appealed to his countrymen to be “impartial in thought as well as action.” Wilson wished to ensure that the United States would be seen as a neutral arbiter in the peace negotiations that would eventually take place, and, in order to do this, he needed to avoid the appearance of favoritism. In addition, he was concerned that overt sympathy for one side or the other would aggravate the nation’s ethnic, geographic, and partisan cleavages. Though there was overwhelming public support for the decision to keep out of the fighting, Wilson correctly foresaw that even the tone of neutrality could potentially engender fierce disagreements.7

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Roosevelt responded to Wilson’s decision with uncharacteristic timidity. In August 1914, he announced that he would support the administration and did not favor either side in the conflict. He also argued that the war should be viewed as being “beyond party differences.”8 However, such statements conflicted with his private correspondence, in which he indicated that he viewed Germany’s actions, especially the invasion of Belgium, as deeply unjust. He also indicated sympathy for the British war effort. This contrasted with his contempt for the Wilson administration’s foreign policy, including its failure to condemn the wrong done to Belgium.9 By the end of September, the discrepancy between his public and private statements had disappeared, and Roosevelt began to discuss his convictions about the war in Europe and his disagreements with the administration. This left him vulnerable to charges of inconsistency.10 What led to this about-​face? One factor was personal: as he wrote to more than one correspondent during this period, he had begun to feel his age for the first time. This was due, in large part, to a near-​death experience during an expedition to chart a theretofore unexplored Brazilian river in 1913 and 1914 that had left him in poor health. It affected his normally deft touch on such matters.11 Furthermore, tactical considerations played a role. Midterm elections loomed in November, and he had promised some progressives that he would refrain from criticizing the president’s pursuit of peace.12 While he disagreed with the administration, TR was plagued by uncertainty about how he should approach public life as a private citizen. In the months following his defeat in 1912, TR had concluded that the Progressive Party would not survive in the long run (though he elected not to seek its disbandment, in case it would provide leverage in dealing with the Republican Party). It would need to merge with one of the two major parties, but as yet he could not imagine returning to the Republican fold, and he would never consider fusion with the Democratic Party.13 Hence, for months he remained in a state of political limbo, ambivalent about his political identity and the extent to which he should make public his differences with the administration. This sense of dislocation was exacerbated by the fact that his popularity with the public, an asset upon which he had been able to rely for years, vanished. “It is perfectly obvious that the bulk of our people are heartily tired of me and that as far as making political speeches or taking part in any more party activities is concerned,” he wrote to a fellow progressive, “my duty for the time being is to obey the directions of the New Bedford whaling captain when he told his mate that all he wanted from him was ‘silence; and damn little of that!’ ”14

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Such statements were not simply an expression of wounded pride. They reflected Roosevelt’s convictions about political leadership and the nature of public opinion. More specifically, they demonstrated an understanding that he no longer enjoyed the platform of the White House from which to shape the public discussion. “I believe that if I had been President the American people would have followed me,” but now he was “certain that the majority” were “following Wilson,” he explained to Cecil Spring Rice. “Only a limited number of people could or ought to be expected to make up their minds for themselves in a crisis like this; and they tend . . . to support the President in such a crisis.” This meant that it “would be worse than folly for me to clamor now about what ought to be done or ought to have been done.” He wrote to the British foreign minister, Sir Edward Grey, regarding his disagreements with Wilson and Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan about war policy, that they spoke “for the country,” whereas he had “no influence whatever in shaping public action and . . . very little influence indeed in shaping public opinion.”15 Although the former president recognized that he would not be able to compete with Wilson’s ability to shape public attitudes, he nevertheless concluded it was imperative that he act. He resolved to attempt to convince his countrymen about the need to prepare for war and that the administration was not doing enough. Roosevelt’s decision to challenge Wilson was about more than the vigor with which U.S. rights should be asserted in Mexico and vis-​à-​vis Germany; it originated in a profound distrust of the president, his style of leadership, and his foreign policy worldview. From TR’s perspective, the administration’s problems began in Latin America, not Europe. He viewed its reaction to the Mexican Civil War, which had commenced in 1911, as inept.16 In addition, in April 1914 Bryan signed a treaty with Colombia in which the United States expressed regret for the way in which it acquired the Panama Canal Zone and agreed to pay Colombia a $25 million indemnity, a decision that Roosevelt considered “a crime against the United States.”17 These episodes reinforced in TR’s mind that Wilson was the most pernicious type of leader. The intensity of TR’s dislike of Wilson was, by any standard, extreme and unreasonable, and it far surpassed in fervor and duration earlier such episodes, such as his ad hominem attacks on Senator Eugene Hale in 1907. However, at least a few other Republicans viewed the president in similar terms. Henry Cabot Lodge, for instance, declared that Wilson was “the most dangerous man that has ever sat in the White House, except [ James] Buchanan.”18

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There was, to be sure, considerable petty jealousy on the part of Roosevelt and it led to a harsh, often deeply unfair view of the former governor of New Jersey. He resented the fact that Wilson had won the election as a progressive Democrat at the same time that TR was running as head of the Progressive Party. Even more galling for the former president was the fact that Wilson occupied the White House during the foremost international crisis of the era. He would have viewed any man as less able than himself to command the helm of state at such a crucial moment, let alone Wilson. It is clear, as one historian has argued, that TR never adjusted fully to no longer being commander in chief. Deprived of the awesome responsibility of the presidency, he was still capable of astonishing deeds, but not always to constructive ends, and his reaction to Wilson was a notable example in this respect. Whether or not, as at least one historian has suggested, TR was at times mentally unbalanced during the final decade of his life is impossible to determine. Either way, the nature of his opposition to Wilson does little credit to Roosevelt’s legacy.19 To be fair to TR, his hatred of Wilson was the product of more than just pique; he genuinely believed that the president was endangering the nation. This is a key aspect of the Wilson-​Roosevelt rivalry, one that goes to the heart of TR’s conception of the making of foreign policy in a democratic system. His critique consisted of several counts. Wilson was a Democrat and, as such, was constrained by the history and political culture of his party. It is no accident that Roosevelt constantly compared Wilson to the Democrats he viewed as the worst presidents in history, Buchanan and Madison. The poor quality of advisers at his side was an additional millstone—​the former president considered Bryan, for instance, to be “the most contemptible figure we have ever had as Secretary of State.”20 However, Wilson was not simply a victim of his political party’s shortcomings, in Roosevelt’s view; he was a deeply flawed individual. For one thing, he was a coward, a shortcoming that the former president frequently, and unfairly, ascribed to his opponents. This translated, TR believed, into a fear of ordering military action and a propensity to view international conflict as something that could be solved through international treaties and arbitration, rather than force (a tendency that was allegedly reinforced by Wilson’s background as an academic). He was also “a shifty and rather unscrupulous man,” Roosevelt complained, who had no honor or sense of duty; his only goal was to ensure his own political success, and he would say or do anything to maintain popularity.21

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Figure 7.3  Puck portrait of Governor Woodrow Wilson, 1912. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

In leveling this criticism—​which had been directed at him more than once—​TR was highlighting a subtle but important difference of opinion about the proper role of the president. As one historian has noted, Wilson’s view of leadership was “essentially interpretive.” He placed educating the people at the heart of his conception of leadership, but believed that this could only be done gradually. “You cannot make opinion overnight,” Wilson once argued. In the short term, his main role was to implement policies based upon his reading of the will of the people even as he sought, over time, to shift opinion in what he viewed as the proper direction, mainly by appealing to the intellect.22 TR, of course, was equally sensitive to public sentiment and just as skilled at balancing his policy preferences with political necessity. Furthermore, he would have agreed with Wilson’s recognition that it took time to mold public sentiment. However, he believed that it was the responsibility of a good leader

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to educate the people—​who were fundamentally sound in character but easily misled—​as quickly as possible. The “public cannot take in an etching,” he wrote to Lodge, in early 1916, in a letter in which he urged the senator and other Republicans to criticize more forcefully Wilson’s wartime leadership. “They want something along the lines of a circus poster. They do not wish fine details, and it is really not to be expected that they should see them.” This philosophy made TR a powerful speaker, especially during World War I, when he preached his message with particular urgency. Yet it also made it more difficult to persuade those with whom he differed and contributed to the hostility he engendered in groups such as German-​Americans and antiwar activists.23 Perhaps the worst part about Wilson, from TR’s perspective, was that in spite of his defects he was a “good politician” who was adept at using many of the tactics the former president had so often employed. He was an able strategist, Roosevelt grudgingly admitted to John St. Loe Strachey. The president, he believed, was adroitly using his policy of neutrality to solidify his standing with the German-​and Irish-​American communities and pacifists prior to the 1916 election. Even more important than his knack for appealing to specific constituencies was his ability to shape public opinion. He was, TR wrote, a “wonderful dialectician, with a remarkable command of language” who had “a hypocritical ability to deceive plain people.”24 In a letter to William Allen White in 1917, in which he recapitulated Wilson’s alleged shortcomings as a wartime leader, Roosevelt elucidated what most troubled him about the president. He discerned in Wilson the “most sinister and adroit power of appealing in his own interest to all that is foolish and base in our people.”25 He viewed Wilson’s style of leadership as the antithesis of the type that the great presidents, such as Abraham Lincoln, practiced and which TR sought to emulate. It was this skill that had allowed the president to rapidly build a consensus around the policy of strict neutrality, and it would be difficult for anyone, he believed in late 1914 and early 1915, to alter the status quo.

The Fight for Preparedness and Americanism Nevertheless, TR decided he would try. For the first time in his career, he pursued a significant foreign policy objective that was clearly opposed by most of his countrymen. What led him down this lonely path? One consideration was his profound dismay about the administration’s policies. Wilson’s refusal to assist Britain in attempting to force Berlin to negotiate, rather than invade Belgium, was dishonorable, Roosevelt argued, given

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the injustices suffered by the Belgians and the fact that Germany was “absolutely wrong.” In fact, he believed that a firm stand by Wilson might have delayed military action long enough to force Germany to abandon its plans.26 The president’s insistence upon absolute neutrality was also shortsighted from a strategic perspective, in TR’s view. If Germany defeated Britain, he predicted, the United States would soon be forced to fight. It was entirely possible that policymakers in Berlin actually believed “that they can dominate the whole world” and, if that were the case, “then nothing would permanently keep them from making the effort.” In addition, he confided to Lodge, a German victory in Europe made an alliance between Tokyo and Berlin more likely. War with Japan remained a danger—​discrimination against the Japanese in California continued to strain relations, as did economic and strategic competition in China—​so he considered such a coalition to be something that policymakers should seek to prevent at all costs.27 Domestic political concerns also influenced the former president. His position on neutrality put him at odds with most voters. Had he abandoned all hope of returning to the White House? The answer is difficult to discern, in part because Roosevelt’s correspondence contains contradictory statements. Yet the question is worth pondering, because doing so yields considerable insight into his views about leadership and the character of the American people. Even though he occasionally lamented that his career was over during this period, such declarations were made in moments of despair and did not represent the full scope of his thinking. A more accurate description of his state of mind is that he viewed himself as unelectable at that point, but retained hope that most of the country would adopt eventually his view of the war. 28 As early as late 1915 TR wrote to a fellow progressive, William Franklin Knox, that he detected “a very strong and growing sentiment for the things for which pretty nearly alone as regards the public leaders I have been standing for the past year and a quarter.” He was willing to advocate preparedness not simply out of a sense of duty, as he sometimes implied—​though he did believe wholeheartedly in the issue and was willing to sacrifice his political career if necessary—​but rather because he had faith that, sooner or later, he would be vindicated. Roosevelt did not doubt that his popularity with the people would rebound. Whether or not the same would be true of Republican Party leaders was a different question—​“ The very men who are reluctantly coming to the conclusion that I am right will wish to relieve their feelings by being against me personally,” he complained to Knox—​but his pursuit of the 1916

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presidential nomination indicates that, at a minimum, he retained some hope.29 Roosevelt launched his attack on Wilson’s foreign policy with a series of long opinion pieces in the New  York Times in the autumn of 1914. He focused on preparedness and Americanism. Preparedness, in TR’s vernacular, encompassed a series of interrelated ideas about how the United States should respond to the war. For the most part, these were lessons Roosevelt had been preaching for years, with some additions to take account of the changed international conditions. The former president’s central premise was that “as yet the standard of international morality is both low and irregular.” The United States could not trust other nations to respect its interests, and “it would be utter folly for us in any grave crisis to trust to anything save our own preparedness and resolution for our safety.”30 In other words, the United States had to rely on military strength to protect it from the harsh nature of international politics. Arbitration and treaties, which many leading political figures—​including Taft—​were proposing as the solution to war, were worthless unless backed by resolve and military force. Indeed, TR warned that the most dangerous stance was the one suggested by Bryan, who had proclaimed in 1910 that there were no disputes that the United States was unwilling “to submit to the judgment of the world. If this nation did that, it not only would not be attacked by any other nation on earth, but it would become the supreme power of the world.”31 In contrast, Roosevelt argued that the army should be increased in quality and quantity, and there should be a much larger reserve force upon which to draw in case of war. To this end, he began to call for universal military service for men. This was more troubling than it might initially appear, because TR’s proposal would have made the right to vote contingent upon fulfilling this obligation. There was, to be sure, an internal logic to his plan: Roosevelt saw his program as the only way to reverse the softening of American manhood, a long-​running concern that re-​emerged during the war. However, it would have been deeply undemocratic and, as one historian notes, would have essentially transformed the United States into a “warrior republic.”32 Along with calling for a larger army, TR demanded “first-​ class fortifications,” especially on the Panama Canal and in Hawaii, and—​in keeping with his long-​standing emphasis on sea power—​a navy that was kept at a high standard through being “continually exercised in maneuvering.” But the former president was not preaching a message of unrestrained and unilateral realpolitik. Already in 1910, in a speech before the Nobel Prize committee

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in Norway, he had proposed creating a “League of Peace.” Building upon this idea, in late 1914 TR called for the formation of a “World League for the Peace of Righteousness.” He argued that the great powers should not only agree to abide by the decisions of a “common tribunal” but to “back with force” those decisions.33 Roosevelt became the first prominent public figure to endorse the concept of a League of Nations, which Wilson later promoted. However, he soon undermined similar efforts by others. In June 1915, a group of prominent men, led by William Howard Taft, formed the U.S. branch of the League to Enforce Peace. TR maintained that he was hesitant to support the new organization for practical reasons. He would remain uncommitted unless these individuals made clear that they would “insist upon putting into effect all treaties entered into” and focused upon preparing “themselves against war.” In reality, his reluctance can be attributed, at least in part, to his dislike for the people associated with this effort, such as Taft. Once again, TR was allowing his personal feelings to hinder his political effectiveness.34 All the same, TR had identified a set of ideas that were beginning to coalesce on both sides of the Atlantic and, as was often the case, moved at the forefront of changes in elite and public opinion. He also consistently explained that his calls for military strength should not be seen as endorsing the principle that might makes right. Instead, he argued, the only way to ensure that justice would be done to nations such as Belgium, or indeed to the United States, was to, as he admonished one pacifist correspondent, “put force back of righteousness in international affairs.”35 At first glance, Roosevelt appears to have been pessimistic that his efforts to encourage preparedness would succeed. There was little support for his position—​he was not calling for entry into the war at this point, just sufficient military force to be able to defend U.S. interests—​and Wilson’s policy of strict neutrality reflected the prevailing public attitude.36 TR complained to Rudyard Kipling that Americans were “shortsighted . . . they do not understand international matters.” He hoped that the articles in the New York Times would “do some good, but I doubt it.”37 Such statements have been presented as evidence of the president’s allegedly pessimistic view of public opinion. Certainly during this period, as throughout his career, he endured brief periods of doubt about the character of the American people. The first few years of World War I represented a nadir in this respect. On more than one occasion he argued that his countrymen were “yellow.” Such rhetoric reflected long-​standing concerns. Too many Americans, he had complained throughout his career, lacked sufficient

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interest in overseas events. Those that were educated and enjoyed higher levels of income, in particular, had become selfish and even cowardly.38 He nevertheless believed that, in the long run, the people would respond if they were properly led. “American society is sound at core,” he wrote in one of his opinion pieces in the New York Times. This meant that “we as a people” accepted that the basis of “sound morality” was “not slothful ease and soft selfishness and the loud timidity that fears every species of risk and hardship, but the virile strength of manliness which accepts as the ideal the stern, unflinching performance of duty” and would follow wherever “that ideal may lead.” This was not disingenuous rhetoric on his part; it reflected one of his deepest and long-​standing convictions. He wrote to Lodge in mid-​1915, after a well-​received speech on preparedness, that “the great mass of the American people are sound if we can only rouse them.” In the wake of Wilson’s re-​ election, in 1916, a perception emerged that the president won much of the West by promising to keep the United States out of war. Roosevelt refused to believe this. He wrote to William Allen White that voters “would have responded to a straight-​out old-​fashioned American appeal for courage and duty,” but the Republican candidate, Charles Evans Hughes, refused to campaign in such terms.39 In other words, the problem was not the character of the average American but the execrable leadership offered by the nation’s leading men. TR explained to his son Archie that “at present the good citizens, as a whole, are puzzled and don’t understand the situation, and so a majority of them also tend to be with” the most influential public figure, the president. There “are no bad regiments but there are plenty of bad colonels,” he wrote to another son, Kermit. “The United States would stand like a unit if we had in the Presidency a man of the stamp of Andrew Jackson.” The implication was clear: Wilson was leading the nation astray, but a strong leader such as Roosevelt would put things in order if given the opportunity.40 By mid-​1915, TR began to discern evidence that his efforts were bearing fruit. After a series of speeches in California, he wrote that “while it would not be true to say that there was wild enthusiasm over my speeches,” nonetheless “the audiences listened to me in each case for nearly two hours with the utmost attention and with substantial assent.” With some astonishment, he concluded, “I have never made speeches from which I have received more response in the way of letters and the like.” For the first time in many months, Roosevelt felt as if he was influencing the public debate. He believed that the “considerable response” to his preparedness campaign was forcing the administration to grapple seriously with the need to gird for war and to confront

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Germany. Henry Cabot Lodge agreed, writing that even the president had “come to the conclusion that there is a rising popular feeling for preparedness and, seeing votes in it, is prepared to take it up.”41 The momentum continued and, by the end of the year, TR was convinced that public sentiment had shifted. To an extent, Roosevelt was correct. Americans increasingly favored doing more to increase military preparedness—​though there was still scant support for entering the war—​and the campaign that he and others had been waging played a role in reframing the terms of the public debate. This could be seen across the political spectrum. Newspapers as diverse as the staunchly Republican Chicago Tribune, the Democratic Constitution of Atlanta, and the independent Springfield Republican of Massachusetts endorsed by late 1915, albeit with differing formulations, the ideas that TR had been advocating. Indeed, the sections on national defense and patriotism in the 1916 Democratic Party platform read as if Roosevelt had been consulted in drafting them: they were given the titles “Preparedness” and “Americanism,” respectively.42 To be sure, Roosevelt was not the lone voice that his correspondence implies. The National Security League, founded in December 1914, had been advocating similar ideas. The league enjoyed the backing of veterans of the Roosevelt and Taft administrations such as Charles Bonaparte, George von Lengerke Meyer, and Robert Bacon as well as influential Democrats such as Alton B. Parker.43 But the principal reason for the evolution in public sentiment was Germany’s use of submarine warfare, and particularly the sinking of the Lusitania in May 1915. In the wake of this incident, Wilson decided that the nation would need to plan for conflict, though he sought a less ambitious program than TR and other preparedness advocates wanted, one that was designed primarily to be defensive.44 After November 1915, he began making the case for this shift in spite of considerable opposition among some Democrats.45 He also began to use the language of Americanism. Though Roosevelt considered such efforts to be insincere and insufficient, he now enjoyed the support of Wilson and much of the public in his belief that the country needed to increase its military strength. As a result, he no longer appeared to be a warmonger who was past his prime. Instead, he was beginning to look prescient. Elihu Root, from whom he had been estranged since 1912, began to echo TR’s message of preparedness and his strident criticism of Wilson. The former senator and member of the Roosevelt cabinet was one of the most respected minds in the party. Root had emerged as an authority on

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foreign policy—​he would later serve as the first chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations—​and was a potential candidate for president in 1916, so his support was encouraging. Root’s message was based on genuine conviction and not electoral calculations—​in fact, aside from eastern Republicans it was probably still too aggressive for most voters, and Democrats saw it as a major error—​but it demonstrated that TR was no longer a pariah in the GOP.46 As the country began to embrace his message about preparedness, Roosevelt was beginning to consider the possibility that his political career might be revived.47 By early 1916, though he continued to disavow any interest in the presidency and argued that the Republican Party would not nominate him—​the Progressive Party at this point, in TR’s calculations, was mainly a lever with which to force conservative Republicans to accept his return to lead the party—​he began to hint at his willingness to re-​enter the fray. He wrote to select correspondents that his nomination would only be conceivable if the country were in a “heroic mood” as “in the time of the Revolution and again in the time of the Civil War.” In other words, if the disposition of the country improved to the extent that he hoped it would, Roosevelt perceived an opening.48 A central component of his burgeoning candidacy was the publication of Fear God and Take Your Own Part. The book focused on Americanism, at home and abroad. In the preface to the second edition, Roosevelt criticized the Wilson administration for its failure to prepare for war and the problems this had caused in relations with Mexico and Germany.49 In the conclusion, he reiterated his belief that nationalism was the only suitable foundation for U.S. foreign policy—​“I believe in Americanism because unless our people are good Americans first, America can accomplish little or nothing worth accomplishing for the good of the world as a whole”50—​and scolded his countrymen for slipping into civilized laziness and cowardice. This had left nations such as Belgium at the mercy of Germany. “We, rich, prosperous, at ease, and potentially powerful, have not lifted a finger to right their wrongs, lest our own safety and comfort might be jeopardized,” he wrote. “This represents on our part neither readiness for self-​sacrifice, nor appreciation for true internationalism. It represents the gross selfishness which puts material well-​being above fealty to a high ideal.”51 On May 13, 1916, a four-​page advertisement, sponsored by the newly formed Roosevelt Non-​Partisan League—​ a group that sought to unite Republican and Progressive forces behind the former president—​was published in the Saturday Evening Post with the title “Why Roosevelt Would Be Our Best Guarantee of Peace.” It served as the unofficial launch of his candidacy.52

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In spite of these efforts, Roosevelt understood his candidacy faced long odds. Many GOP insiders still opposed him. Even Henry Cabot Lodge felt obliged to inform his friend, “I doubt if, under existing circumstances, you would be nominated by the Republicans.” These men resented his departure from the party in 1912 or were suspicious of the progressive tilt of his domestic policies. In addition, there was considerable concern that his rhetoric on preparedness, though no longer outside the mainstream, would nevertheless alienate key constituencies. With this in mind, some Republicans had already begun to discuss the merits of Charles Evans Hughes, the former governor of New York and an associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. Hughes had not announced a position on the war, and consequently many strategists considered him to be a safer candidate. TR recognized at an early stage that the reserved Hughes—​to whom he referred, with characteristic wit, as “the bearded iceberg”—​was the favorite for the nomination. He grudgingly concluded that, though Hughes might not be an ideal choice, he would be a substantial improvement upon the incumbent.53 Republican Party insiders worried that Roosevelt would alienate voters had two groups in mind. TR made no secret of his disdain for those who believed that, in order to avoid war, the nation should not expand the military, and his candidacy would undoubtedly engender strong opposition from such men. This was problematic because they included influential figures such as William Randolph Hearst. Hearst’s flagship daily, the New York American, was primarily a Democratic newspaper, but its message of strict neutrality had a large following among German-​Americans, especially in the pivotal state of New York.54 These voters would complicate a Roosevelt candidacy, in the view of Republican strategists, a fact that the former president acknowledged. Given his long experience in the delicate task of garnering the political support of the large and influential German-​American community, TR believed, from the earliest days of the war, that his stance would compare unfavorably to that of Wilson. The president’s policy of strict neutrality was less objectionable to Americans of German descent than Roosevelt’s focus on Belgium’s suffering and the need to rearm. To be sure, Wilson also faced problems with German-​Americans, many of whom suspected that he was pursuing a secret anti-​German agenda. The influential New-​Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, for instance, endorsed his opponent in the 1916 election, citing the president’s “pro-​British bias.” Nevertheless, Wilson’s standing in this community never sank as low as Roosevelt’s.55

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Figure  7.4  Campaign photograph of Charles Evans Hughes, 1916. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

At first, TR went to great lengths to reassure German-​Americans that he considered them to be valuable citizens and that he did not favor the Allies. In doing so, he used the same type of tactics he had used as president:  maintaining frequent contact with influential members of the community, frankly acknowledging differences about German foreign policy—​in this case the invasion of Belgium—​and pivoting to highlight his desire for good bilateral relations. An invitation for a conversation in person often accompanied such letters.

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He wrote to Hugo Münsterberg in November 1914, for instance, that while they might disagree about the origins of the war, he sincerely hoped that there would be no adverse consequences for Germany. He also emphasized that he viewed a strong Germany as essential to maintaining peace and stability in Europe. He closed by inviting the Harvard professor to visit him at Oyster Bay and claimed, by way of demonstrating his neutrality, that he had “received very violent letters of personal attacks from both Englishmen and Frenchmen on the ground of the pro-​German character of my articles!” To emphasize this point he sent Münsterberg a copy of a letter in which he declined to support an Anglo-​American alliance movement, with the addendum that he was trying to “play fair!” Similarly, in a letter to Edmund Robert Otto von Mach, an academic who had been educated at Harvard, he wrote, “I admire Germany more than any other nation and most certainly it is the nation from which I think that the United States has most to learn.” As for his criticism of Germany’s strategy in the war, he assured von Mach, “I am in no shape or way influenced by prejudice against Germany.”56 Roosevelt soon realized that such methods, though they might have been effective in peacetime and when he had the weight of the White House behind him, would have little impact in time of war, coming from a private citizen. In addition, his campaign for preparedness contrasted unfavorably with Wilson’s call for neutrality “in thought as well as action.” He complained to Rudyard Kipling that Wilson’s strategy allowed him to count “upon getting the large German vote, which to my real regret, I am obliged to alienate by the course I am following.”57 However, while TR rued losing the German vote, he also experienced a sense of liberation in feeling able to speak frankly. This was especially true when it came to propaganda. He had long been aware of the efforts of foreign policymakers to influence public opinion and had, at times, even assisted them. But, to Roosevelt’s alarm, German operations during the war reached a level of unprecedented sophistication and intensity. Some citizens of German descent were involved in these activities, which received the support of organizations such as the National German-​American Alliance. Roosevelt confided to Henry Cabot Lodge—​still his friend, in spite of their political differences—​“ Thank Heaven, I no longer have to consider the effect of my actions upon any party,” and he felt free to attack the effort by “German-​ Americans to use the United States as an instrument of Germany.”58 Hence, in addition to his campaign for preparedness, during World War I  Roosevelt frequently reminded his countrymen about the need for Americanism. Prior to hostilities, German-​Americans had been politically

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influential and widely admired for their contributions to society. With the onset of war, they found themselves in an impossible situation, wherein affection for their ancestral homeland was perceived as disloyalty. In some respects, this period represented a longer and much more intense version of the challenges they experienced during the Venezuela crisis of 1902–​1903. A few German-​Americans, such as Hermann Hagedorn, a friend and supporter of Roosevelt, disavowed their ancestry and adopted a pro-​Allied view of the conflict. Others openly declared their support for Germany. Some of these men actively aided the German government’s propaganda efforts. The noted poet George Viereck, for instance, received hundreds of thousands of dollars in payment from Berlin and printed a pro-​German weekly, The Fatherland. A third group sought a middle way. Men such as Hugo Münsterberg, who had corresponded with Roosevelt for years, hoped to retain an affiliation with and affection for their homeland while also being accepted as loyal Americans. As the war progressed and public attitudes toward Germany hardened, such compromises became untenable. Most people with German backgrounds, when forced to choose, emphasized the American side of their heritage and repudiated the efforts of men such as Viereck.59 Americanism was a word that Roosevelt had been using for years that essentially meant love of country and doing one’s duty. After 1914, the word retained this connotation but took on a further aspect: absolute loyalty to the United States, particularly for those citizens who might be prone to divided affections. In his first public pronouncement on the subject TR warned, “We should not for a moment tolerate the assumption by Germany or any other foreign power that foreign-​born citizens of the United States can retain any citizenship in or allegiance to the country from which they came.”60 To be fair, Roosevelt was usually careful to differentiate between two groups. Americans of German ethnicity who had been a “peculiarly valuable element in our population” and were “in overwhelming proportion, thoroughgoing Americans” were to be lauded. However, he argued, “The German-​Americans who call themselves such and who have agitated as such during the past year, have shown that they are not Americans at all, but Germans in America.”61 This campaign for Americanism aroused the resentment of many German-​ Americans, not least because Roosevelt sometimes engaged in the very demagoguery he had so frequently excoriated. In September 1917, he argued that it would be the responsibility of the “Huns within our gates”—​a group he defined so broadly that it included nearly all opponents of the war—​if the country were ever “invaded by an alien enemy.” The former president, who understood the shortcomings of democracy as well as any politician of his

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era, should have recognized that such rhetoric would encourage nativists and xenophobes.62 Roosevelt’s irresponsibility extended beyond his unintentional encouragement of anti-​German agitators, as he also played an important role in fostering the unforgiveable treatment of wartime dissenters. The most notable instance involved Robert M. LaFollette, who opposed participation in the war even after U.S. entry in April 1917. TR’s relationship with the senator from Wisconsin had long been difficult, even though both were progressives. As was often the case with him, disagreements over political strategy—​TR was, broadly speaking, more pragmatic than LaFollette—​evolved into enmity. Relations were notably strained after Roosevelt defeated the senator for the Progressive Party’s presidential nomination in 1912. These personal differences assumed a more ominous tone after the United States entered the war and TR began to imply that La Follette was disloyal. During an antiwar speech in September 1917, La Follette was widely misquoted as denying that the United States had any “grievances” with Germany. In response, Roosevelt called the senator “one of the most potent enemies of this country” and “the worst enemy that democracy now has alive.” The former president argued that he should be expelled from Congress and, in private, called him an “unhung traitor.” The Senate held hearings but, in the end, La Follette retained his seat. Certainly, Roosevelt’s behavior was far from unique during this period, as the Wilson administration engaged in a number of disgraceful practices designed to stifle dissent. Nevertheless, such episodes left a stain on TR’s legacy.63 In spite of Roosevelt’s fury about figures such as La Follette, he believed the issue of German-​American loyalty to be more pressing. He did not confine himself to criticizing citizens of German ethnicity whom he suspected of insufficient patriotism, or the administration in Washington that he believed was not doing enough to discourage them. He also portrayed Americanism as an integral part of a broader progressive political agenda that would contribute to building a happier, more efficient society. In order to do this, he argued, English should be made the official language and bilingualism should be discouraged; dual loyalty and dual citizenship should not be tolerated; and there should be “an intelligent and resolute effort for the removal of industrial and social unrest” that would endeavor to secure for “every man his rights and to make every man understand that unless he in good faith performs his duties he is not entitled to any rights at all.”64 In preaching preparedness and Americanism, Roosevelt was all too aware of the challenges he faced. In addition to his complicated relationship with

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progressives and Republicans, and the hostility of key voting blocs, he was also at a disadvantage vis-​à-​vis the president. Wilson enjoyed a much more effective platform from which to make his case, as well as the skill and flexibility to appropriate the most politically attractive parts of TR’s message. Nevertheless, the former president remained a formidable speaker and writer and—​buoyed by a new sense of optimism—​put his skills to good use. He continued to give speeches around the country, publish opinion pieces on a regular basis, and maintain a prolific correspondence with many influential opinion shapers. He was aware of his reputation as an extremist and sought, not always successfully, to avoid appearing too strident or unreasonable. As he wrote to one acquaintance, he did not want to “alienate good uninformed people of slightly timid or sluggish mind, who simply are utterly unable to face the new questions. These people I would tend to lose by a proper violence of statement!”65 One of the ironies of TR’s wartime experience was that many of the people with whom he found himself in agreement, at least when it came to preparedness and pro-​Ally sympathies, were members of the northeastern cultural and financial elite. This was the same group that he had spent most of his career excoriating as insufficiently patriotic, overly sentimental, and a deleterious influence upon public opinion. Charles W. Eliot, for instance, the former president of Harvard University, was an early advocate of preparedness and open about his support for the Allies. The National Security League, which was closely tied to the nation’s leading financiers, also drew heavily upon members of the economic and cultural elite. It included Henry Stimson, a Wall Street lawyer and secretary of war under Taft, and Joseph Choate, the former ambassador to the Court of St. James, who served as the league’s honorary president. Many of these people eventually supported Hughes for president and, after passage of the Adamson Act in September 1916, which established an eight-​ hour workday and other benefits for railroad workers, contributions to his campaign from the business community greatly increased.66 Despite the increasing salience of Roosevelt’s message, Republicans nominated Hughes at their national convention in June. TR indicated that he would support the governor of New  York, though he tended to speak with more passion about Wilson’s shortcomings than he did about Hughes’s strengths. That was because Hughes did not advocate preparedness and Americanism with the vigor that Roosevelt demanded. In part, this indicated the care with which Hughes sought to avoid limiting his freedom for maneuver if he won the election. It also reflected the fact that party strategists sought to avoid antagonizing German-​Americans, many of whom remained

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hostile to the former president. Henry Weismann, president of the German-​ American Alliance in New York, stated prior to the Republican convention, “The feeling among German-​Americans all over the country is much stronger against Theodore Roosevelt than it is against President Wilson, and I predict that if Mr. Roosevelt should be nominated the votes of citizens of German parentage in this country will surely be cast for Mr. Wilson.”67 Mindful of such sentiments, party leaders made no reference to preparedness and Americanism in the 1916 platform—​in contrast to the Democrats—​ and mentioned neutrality twice. However, as the New York Times reported after the election, this strategy largely failed—​German-​American voters did not break for Hughes in the large numbers that Republican strategists had anticipated. Leading German-​Americans attributed this, in large part, to the prominence of Roosevelt on the hustings. Indeed, Democrats did their best to link Hughes to TR and viewed the former president’s active role as a decisive factor in the outcome. The Wilson campaign also played dirty. They charged falsely, late in the campaign, that Hughes had struck a secret deal with German and Irish-​American groups. In return for their support, reports alleged, Hughes would pursue an anti-​British policy.68 Hughes’s decision not to emphasize preparedness also reflected the fact that, though the public increasingly favored expansion of the military, support for neutrality remained strong. In addition, anti-​British sentiment had risen as a result of the stifling blockade against the Central Powers—​which had affected neutral countries, including the United States—​and the harsh suppression of the Easter Rebellion in Ireland in April 1916. In response to these pressures, and fearing that the United States was on a course that would soon lead to war with Germany, the president had begun to explore the possibility of a negotiated settlement in late 1916, “a peace without victory.” However, this goal foundered in the face of resistance from both sides of the conflict.69 TR understood the domestic political currents as well as the president, but he favored the Allies and disdained Wilson’s attempt to facilitate a negotiated settlement. He viewed preparation for war as the only responsible option. He also worried about the damage to Britain’s image. In an effort to defuse accusations of anti-​German bias, he publicly characterized his support for Britain and the Allied powers as justified by their defense of Belgium and in no way indicative of a deeper bond. However, in reality TR believed that Britain and the United States shared a special relationship, and, by 1918, he had begun to write to friends that he believed the two countries should form the “closest alliance.”70

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Figure 7.5  Rochester Herald cartoon from 1915 portrays TR’s message of preparedness as a vehicle for his presidential ambitions. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

Public diplomacy was one area in which Roosevelt sought to aid Britain. From an early stage of the war, the former president worried about Germany’s extensive and well-​funded propaganda efforts in the United States. He feared that it would succeed in encouraging disloyalty and pro-​German sentiment. He also believed that it would turn public sentiment against Britain, especially since, he complained to one British correspondent, “your Government” is not “doing enough to inform public opinion in America about certain matters as to which it should be informed.”71

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Such admonitions from TR were somewhat misplaced, as policymakers in London placed considerable importance on the state of public opinion. They considered the United States the most important neutral country and crafted a sophisticated strategy for cultivating favorable sentiment. They recognized that many Americans still distrusted Britain and would resent the type of aggressive, U.S.-​based campaign that Germany had undertaken. Instead, they mounted a more subtle effort, based in London, to target influential opinion shapers. They calculated that these men would, in turn, do the work of persuading their countrymen in a more effective fashion than they ever could.72 Roosevelt was either unaware of this line of thinking or, more likely, disagreed with it. Therefore, as he had done throughout his career, he provided unsolicited advice to his British contacts about improving their nation’s image. He recognized that his ability to speak personally on Britain’s behalf was constrained, because he needed to maintain at least a veneer of even-​handedness. In addition, the fact that many British newspapers and politicians claimed they were happy with the administration’s policy—​TR acknowledged that this was a reasonable way to avoid offending the president and the public—​greatly reduced his ability to challenge Wilson. Doing so would allow the president’s supporters to highlight British statements of support. Roosevelt explained to the British politician Arthur Lee, “Obviously it would be very foolish for me to take a position in favor of England as to which it is possible triumphantly to refute me by quoting the English themselves.”73 In light of such limitations, TR mostly confined his advice to the tactical level, through private correspondence with opinion leaders. He advised Spring Rice, for example, that potentially damaging documents about Berlin’s war strategy and about alleged atrocities committed by German soldiers should be translated into English and widely distributed. The translation, he continued, “should be prepared especially for distribution in the United States, both to the press and to private individuals; and it should be put in such shape that the points visualize themselves at once to the ordinary reader.” If British policymakers considered it important to “keep American opinion on their side,” he concluded, “then it seems to me that the American people should be sedulously given the chance to know the facts and see the arguments.”74 Similarly, he counseled the foreign minister, Sir Edward Grey, to provide more access to U.S. war correspondents. He cited the well-​known Frederick Palmer as the type of journalist who should be given access to British soldiers. German officials had “showered” men such as Palmer with “lavish attentions,” while the British and the French had ignored them. This had not “interfered

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with the efficiency of German military operations; and it has certainly helped the Germans in American public opinion.” Conscious of the tension in the Anglo-​American relationship, he also advised Grey that Britain should not insist too passionately upon its “rights” in situations where it is “so very important . . . that there should be no American hostility,” even when those rights were very clear, warning that he feared “an irritation in this country which might have effects that I will not even contemplate, because they would cause me real horror.” He offered similar guidance to influential British friends such as John St. Loe Strachey, editor of The Spectator.75 In providing such advice, Roosevelt’s goals were not entirely altruistic. He sought to aid the British in their public diplomacy efforts and to enlist their help in making his case about preparedness. He scolded the former British ambassador, James Bryce, for instance, for making comments that could have been construed as endorsing Wilson’s policy of neutrality. Rather than allowing the impression to form among easily misled, “well-​meaning people,” he argued, what was needed from Bryce was “an emphatic appeal to the American people not to be neutral between right and wrong and a convincing showing that Germany’s course is such that all just nations and all free democracies should be against it.”76

War and Politics, 1917–​1919 Woodrow Wilson narrowly won the election in November 1916. Instead of being downcast, Roosevelt felt a degree of vindication. He wrote to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, in reference to Republican strategists, “Their one chance of winning was with me and . . . it would have been to their enormous advantage to have nominated me.” He argued that Hughes and the Republicans had sought to win the election by playing it safe—​they “tried to beat skimmed milk with cambric tea”—​and, in doing so, failed to highlight the differences between Hughes and Wilson. The sense that he had been correct from the outset was amplified by the tone of much of his correspondence. For instance, James R. Garfield, a Progressive from Ohio and the son of President James A. Garfield, wrote, “I imagine that a great many people now wish they had heeded the doctrine that you have for so many years been preaching.”77 Although he remained uneasy about the course of the Republican Party, TR saw little future for the Progressive Party, at least in its current incarnation. He informed Lodge in a handwritten letter in March 1917, “When root questions such as national self-​preservation, and the upholding of the

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national honor, and the performance of duty in international affairs are concerned, the ordinary matters that divide conservative and progressive must be brushed aside.” Furthermore, he had no desire to become an independent—​“a mugwump creature”—​he wrote to William Allen White. It was, of course, “not possible” for him to become a Democrat.78 Roosevelt believed he was the best man to lead the nation. He wanted to do so at the head of the Republican Party—​albeit an incarnation of the GOP that was more conducive to his priorities. With this in mind, he began planning for 1920, when he foresaw that he would be one of the favorites for the Republican nomination. Given his analysis of the election results, he saw no reason to alter his message. Indeed, the events that prompted U.S. entry into the war in April 1917—​Germany’s resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare and the release of the Zimmerman telegram, which revealed that Berlin was seeking an alliance with Mexico—​all seemed to demonstrate his prescience. In a speech at the Union Club in New York City that spring, alongside prominent Republicans such as Hughes and Elihu Root, he delivered a passionate address. He berated the Wilson administration for refusing to recognize that “Germany is making war against us at this moment” and pleaded with it to prepare without hesitation for conflict. He urged “any citizens of the United States who loves Germany as much or nearly as much as the United States” to “go back there,” and he advised “any citizen of the United States who hates England more than he loves the United States” to “go somewhere else.” He labeled pacifists “the tool and subordinate ally of the pro-​German of this country.”79 The declaration of war by the United States did nothing to curtail TR’s criticism of the administration and he continued to attempt to influence public opinion, though with considerably more confidence than in 1914 and 1915. “Four years ago, to put it mildly, my attitude was not popular,” he noted wryly in a letter to Rudyard Kipling in late 1918. However, during the midterm elections that year for Congress, in which Republicans retook both chambers, he was the “one man” Republicans “insisted upon following and whose statements were taken as the platform.” He campaigned widely for Republicans during the midterm elections in autumn 1918, and candidates sought his endorsement.80 Even as his political prospects rebounded, TR suffered disappointment and tragedy in his personal life. For several years, he had been planning to raise several volunteer divisions if the United States entered the conflict. A  week after Wilson’s war message to Congress, Roosevelt met the president and made his request in person. Wilson declined the offer. Roosevelt

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was outraged, but the president’s decision was understandable. Although the former president’s bravery and patriotism were unquestioned, he would have been a liability in combat. His health had never recovered after his near-​death experience in South America. He was also too old, overweight, nearly blind in one eye, and an amateur who did not understand modern warfare—​in 1915 he was still speaking of leading divisions of “mounted rifleman.” Furthermore, TR’s presence at the front would have been a significant distraction and would have done more harm than good. Of course, it would have also boosted his political standing prior to 1920. He might have served a useful role behind the lines, in raising the morale of the troops, but this is not what Roosevelt envisioned. With his romanticized view of warfare, he wanted to engage in combat and face the possibility of a soldier’s death.81 At least one historian has argued that the former president wanted to fall at the front and had been looking for an honorable end since 1913. This interpretation dovetails nicely with the fact that TR never adjusted to life after the White House and saw a heroic death as preferable to continued irrelevance. He told William Allen White in early 1917, “I think I could do this country most good by dying in a reasonably honorable fashion, at the head of my division in the European War.” Although Roosevelt fantasized at times about spending the final moments of his life leading a cavalry charge, it would be an exaggeration to conclude that he had a death wish. His zest for life and his hunger for a return to political relevance were too strong to permit him to actively seek his own demise. He wrote to White, “I don’t intend to die if it can be legitimately avoided.” Even after his son Quentin perished in aerial combat in mid-​1918, Roosevelt continued to remain engaged in social and political life. To do otherwise was simply not in his character.82 Burdened by failing health and grief, Roosevelt nevertheless rallied for a final period in the political spotlight. The public had, just as he predicted, awoken from its stupor and was ready to uphold the nation’s honor in the fight against the Central Powers. He worked to ensure that the battle was conducted properly. The United States should, he argued, wage war as efficiently as possible. Only unconditional surrender would be acceptable, and talk of a negotiated peace must be quashed immediately. Perhaps most importantly, he believed, the administration should seek a sustainable postwar order that did not rest solely on a League of Nations, but that relied first and foremost—​at least for the United States—​on strength, including universal military training for young men.83 TR also strove to ensure that Wilson received no credit for leading the country into war. Instead, he promulgated a narrative in which the president

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and allies such as Hearst—​who had, belatedly, become a passionate supporter of the fight against the Central Powers—​had to be shamed into joining the conflict. He wrote in the foreword of For France that the administration “had partly misled the people and partly lagged far behind the people.” It was only the “growing body of American sentiment,” in spite of the absence of “leadership from the men in political control at Washington,” that had forced Wilson and Congress to declare war.84 In order to disseminate this argument, Roosevelt increased his already substantial writing and speaking commitments. In addition to retaining a monthly editorial slot at The Metropolitan, he began publishing several opinion pieces each week in the Kansas City Star and arranged for material that was “too strong” for the Star to be published by the Philadelphia North American.85 He also became more active in engaging with journalists and their editors. In letters and personal meetings, he worked to prevent influential members of the media from contributing to the perception that Wilson should be lauded for his performance as a wartime commander. He wrote sternly to Caspar Whitney, a war correspondent for the New-​York Tribune who had criticized dilatory efforts to transfer men and materiel to the front in Europe, but praised Wilson’s “stalwart patriotism and grim determination. . . . Every specific shortcoming and failure you describe is due more to the President than to any other one man; and most of them are due exclusively to him & to no one else.”86 TR wanted to ensure no one forgot that Wilson and many of his allies were latecomers to the preparedness movement. His efforts were also designed to remind everyone that he had foreseen the danger before almost anyone else. “Our real difficulty in securing preparedness at present comes from the fact that Mr. Wilson’s great adroitness and cleverness (and entire absence of conviction),” he wrote to Frank Munsey, owner of the New York Sun, “were during two and a half vital years used to persuade the people not to prepare.” Roosevelt helped to arrange the resignation of the president of the National Security League, who issued a statement to the effect that the Hearst papers had played a constructive role in the war effort. This allowed Hearst to run a full-​page ad with the title “National Security League Head Commends the New York American’s Stand for Preparedness on War.”87 To an extent, TR’s intense engagement with the press served a higher purpose—​providing sound leadership in a time of crisis. Most Americans were fundamentally predisposed to supporting sound policies, he believed, but they could be easily misled and public men had a duty to carefully choose their words. For instance, when his friend William Allen White, the

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influential owner and editor of the Emporia Gazette, praised Wilson’s oversight of the war effort, Roosevelt admonished him at length. “You occupy a great position and when you devote your abilities to misleading the people,” he wrote, “there is always the chance that you may do serious harm.”88 But TR’s activities during this period were, first and foremost, designed to position him as advantageously as possible for the election in 1920. Though he occasionally mouthed platitudes about not wanting to “linger superfluous on the stage,” even to his own family members, his energetic political maneuvering belied such statements. He was sanguine about his status as a leading contender for the Republican nomination and believed that the GOP was in a strong position to retake the White House. Indeed, one of his principal concerns at this point was overconfidence. This might lead to complacency, and thence to a lazy conservatism, which was a recipe for defeat. It might also lead Republicans, after their return to the majority in both chambers of Congress, to be too aggressive in attacking the administration and somehow squander the advantage they held. “While we must take the lid off and investigate, and must show no mercy to the President,” he warned Henry Cabot Lodge, “yet . . .the situation is so good that you must not make any mistake by overplaying your hand and causing a reaction of sympathy toward the President.”89 Another potential pitfall prior to 1920, Roosevelt recognized, was the split among influential Republicans about the nature of the postwar settlement. Some, such as Taft, were receptive to one of the key proposals in Wilson’s famous Fourteen Points speech, in January 1918: the formation of a League of Nations. Others, such as Albert Beveridge, were adamant that the basis of postwar foreign policy had to be nationalism rather than idealistic, and presumably impractical, internationalism. (Beveridge also viewed the League to Enforce Peace as the party’s best issue with which to attack Wilson and the Democrats.) Henry Cabot Lodge was also skeptical. He emerged, by late 1918, as the unofficial leader of the GOP in the Senate. Lodge and a number of other Republicans were willing to consider ratification of the Treaty of Versailles, but only with reservations. They were particularly concerned about Article 10, which they feared would have obligated the United States to participate in armed conflict without the authorization of Congress.90 TR made contradictory statements about this debate. To Taft—​with whom he had reconciled—​he conceded that he would be willing to back a “League to Enforce Peace . . . as an addition to, but not as a substitute for, our preparing our own strength for our own defense.” Meanwhile, to Beveridge, he wrote that he favored “Nationalism as against Internationalism.” He explained

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that the formulation he had used publicly and with other correspondents was “merely a platonic expression, designed to let Taft and his followers to get over without too much trouble, and also to prevent any accusation that we are ourselves merely Prussian militarists.”91 In part, TR was following a strategy designed to keep the two wings of the party together.92 It was the type of political straddle at which he excelled and which few other Republicans had the skill to perform. There was more at play, however. Roosevelt’s ideas were genuinely fluid at this point, and his inconsistent rhetoric reflected this unresolved tension. He saw the need for mechanisms to bring order and peace to the international system and believed that it would be dangerous for the United States to rely upon them to protect it.93 Furthermore, he was more critical of the president’s Fourteen Points and the League of Nations than he otherwise would have been because they were Wilson’s. In other words, his stance on the League must be seen within the context of partisanship. His frequent invocations about international peace and morality were not simply concessions to pacifists and internationalists such as Taft and Wilson, though he sometimes used them as such, and they did not serve as window dressing for his true, balance-​of-​power concerns, as some scholars have argued.94 Rather, he favored some sort of international organization that was designed to enforce international norms, as long as it was based upon military force.95 Alas, we cannot know what role the former president would have played in the debate over the League of Nations in the Senate, as he died on January 6, 1919. Perhaps his hatred for Wilson and his determination to win the election would have led him to the same position that Lodge and most other Republicans adopted—​in favor of approving the Treaty of Versailles, but with reservations. The more likely outcome is that, once back in the White House, Roosevelt would have been able to transcend the personal feuding and lack of discipline that plagued him after 1909, much in the way that he (mostly) did as president. This would have allowed him to focus on ideas and objectives, rather than personalities and process, which was always a more productive mindset for TR, and to guide the United States into participation in the League of Nations. He was, after all, the first prominent American to suggest such an organization. It would have been a fitting capstone to an extraordinary career.

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When it comes to foreign policy, Americans ask much of their presidents. The job is complex and demands mastery of countless issues—​big and small, domestic and international—​leading to a limitless set of demands on the chief executive’s time and attention. Paradoxically, voters do not always comprehend all that transpires in global affairs, even as they maintain unrealistic expectations about a president’s ability to influence the rest of the world. The pressure from interest groups is unrelenting and often leads to difficult decisions, wherein pleasing one faction angers another. Meanwhile, partisanship is ever present and makes it difficult to establish a broad consensus for bold action, which is often necessary in a democracy where power is shared among the three branches of government. Each of these conditions applied to Theodore Roosevelt’s tenure. Americans, though hardly isolationist, did not always grasp the full extent of the changes in world affairs at the turn of the twentieth century and their implications for the nation’s future. TR endured closer scrutiny from the press and public than any of his predecessors, though he welcomed much of the attention. Business groups, ethnic lobbies, and other interested parties jostled for his favor on a regular basis, often in unhelpful ways. The Democratic Party, anchored by southern conservatives, reflexively opposed most of his plans, though in some crucial moments—​such as during the Panama Canal debate—​many in Dixie applauded him. To further complicate matters, many conservatives in the GOP never fully accepted him and, especially after 1904, undercut him. This combination of reflexive Democratic opposition and conservative Republican distrust exacerbated the inherent tension between the executive and legislative branches. Additional friction emerged as a result of suspicion about Roosevelt’s unprecedented expansion of the powers of the presidency.

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The impact of such constraints was significant enough that some observers have judged his foreign policy a disappointment. One school of thought holds that, for all of his ability to influence public opinion, TR was hobbled by the unwillingness of the people to embrace the full extent of his ambitious agenda. Too many Americans failed to understand “the basic lessons of international politics,” writes one historian and, after initial enthusiasm following victory in the Spanish-​American War, recoiled from the long-​term commitments to empire maintenance and great power diplomacy that should have followed.1 Difficulties TR faced after departing Washington in 1909 have also affected perceptions of his legacy. Multiple failed presidential bids and several years of diminished popularity tarnished his aura of political genius. Watching from the sidelines as Wilson led the country to war was intolerable and at times lent an air of desperation to Roosevelt’s conduct. The subsequent influence of the Wilsonian school of thought and the perception that Roosevelt failed to bequeath a similar legacy have contributed to the view that, in spite of his feel for public sentiment, TR overlooked something vital about the national character.2 Even Roosevelt’s impressive achievements can be portrayed as a perverse sort of failure. They raised expectations to such an extent, argues one historian, that disillusionment with TR and with his successors was inevitable. Furthermore, he “globalized” the presidency, leading to an unprecedented spread of influence for the executive branch and for the United States. This laid the foundation for a new type of internationalism that was emulated by subsequent presidents. Aspects of this evolution were positive:  Roosevelt was the first prominent U.S. statesman to back the creation of what in 1795 Immanuel Kant dubbed a Friedensbund—​or league of peace—​a forerunner to the League of Nations and the United Nations. Yet vigorous international engagement could also be problematic. Decades of imperialism in Latin America, for instance, ultimately benefited neither the United States nor its neighbors.3 Though there is some truth in these assessments, on balance TR succeeded much more often than not. All of his principal objectives—​naval expansion, construction of the Panama Canal, U.S. predominance in the Caribbean region, and decisive participation in World War I—​came to fruition, and he played a prominent or even decisive role in each instance. This was largely possible because of his ability to maintain the backing of the public. “It was this great mass of support among the people, and which probably was never larger than in these last years, that gave him his immense influence upon

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public opinion,” Henry Cabot Lodge told Congress shortly after his friend’s death in 1919, “and public opinion was the weapon which he used to carry out all the policies which he wished to bring to fulfillment and to consolidate all the achievements upon which he had set his heart.”4 In rare instances in which TR’s thinking diverged significantly from the broader public, such as the initial war years, this was less a case of losing touch with mainstream sentiment than one of being in its vanguard. Indeed, he referred to himself more than once as a “prophet” during this period, and the description was apt, if immodest.5 The ample evidence of his faith in the people—​which bent at times but never broke—​and his conviction that they

Figure C.1  Theodore Roosevelt, 1918. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.

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would almost always support a sensible foreign policy, so long as the president provided leadership, should put to rest the idea that he maintained a negative or condescending view of public opinion. The final decade of Roosevelt’s career, while characterized by considerable disappointment, personal and professional, was nonetheless fruitful. He led the way on preparedness and Americanism—​admittedly both included troubling aspects—​and was the first public figure to foresee the trajectory of public sentiment in regard to World War I. His period in the political wilderness, while deeply frustrating for the aging politician, had ended by 1918 at the latest. At the time of his death he was the leading Republican candidate for the 1920 election, which was a landslide for his party. Only his untimely passing prevented a likely return to the pinnacle of national politics. His stance on the most significant foreign policy question at the war’s end—​yes to participation in the League of Nations, but reserving freedom for maneuver on key questions of national interest, and maintaining a vigorous military—​ dovetailed comfortably with mainstream GOP opinion. Given the favorable results of the 1918 and 1920 elections, it was at least unobjectionable to a significant majority of the electorate. If we compare TR’s post–​White House career to that of other former presidents, it ranks among the most significant. Only John Quincy Adams, who served for seventeen years in the House of Representatives after leaving the White House and was for much of that time an isolated opponent of slavery, played anywhere near as important a role in a debate of vital national importance.6 It would be strange to judge such a record one of failure. Rather than setting the bar for future presidents too high, Roosevelt’s impressive achievements suggest that success, even greatness, is possible when a politician possesses certain traits. Vision, for instance, was essential. For more than two decades, Roosevelt fought to ensure that the United States would translate its latent strength into great power status. This goal was controversial, but it also inspired. It gave Americans an aspiration around which they could rally and even, at times, brought Republicans and Democrats together. Though he never wavered in his belief in the nation’s greatness, he was flexible about how it could be achieved. He was an unrelenting advocate of building a world-​class navy, for example, but accepted that expansion would not proceed as quickly as he wanted. This suppleness highlights the importance of political skill. The U.S. system features numerous veto points, so TR needed considerable dexterity to win the support, or at least negate the opposition, of numerous actors. Though he fell short in this regard at times, such as his failure to secure immigration

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reform in 1905–​1906, Roosevelt was often able to translate his objectives into workable legislation and policy. Partly, this reflected a willingness to compromise. It also highlighted his persuasive powers, as when he secured the cooperation of local officials during the San Francisco school board crisis. Republicans controlled both chambers of Congress during Roosevelt’s tenure, but frequent opposition from GOP conservatives made winning votes more difficult than it otherwise would have been. His ability to surmount partisan differences helped. Securing naval expansion in 1908, for instance, was only possible because he assembled an unlikely bipartisan coalition. This skill in uniting Democrats and Republicans should not come as a surprise, given TR’s progressive and reformist impulses and the ideological heterodoxy of the parties during his era. At the same time, TR loathed the Democratic Party, making his ability to transcend ideology all the more impressive. One reason for Roosevelt’s willingness to cross the aisle was his faith in the Constitution and the people. His cavils about specific impediments aside, TR believed in the American experiment. Certainly, he perceived significant threats to the nation, such as the mugwump worldview and the extremes of unbridled capitalism and socialism, but he remained sanguine about the future. This optimism served as a cornerstone for his ambitious goals, for his willingness to take bold action, and for his striking ability to inspire his countrymen to support him. TR’s popular standing was only possible because of the emphasis he placed upon political leadership. He recognized that his role required the ability to stir the imagination and to accurately evaluate what the public would support. In his classic, late nineteenth-​century study of U.S. politics The American Commonwealth, James Bryce wrote that public opinion “is the central point of the whole American polity,” which “determines the direction and the character of national policy.” Roosevelt held a similar view. Despite occasional complaints, he believed that the public’s often pivotal role was appropriate and criticized politicians and members of the eastern elite who disdained the masses or sought to diminish their influence.7 Rather than rendering his foreign policy unworkable, the political system’s constraints frequently worked to Roosevelt’s benefit, and he sometimes stumbled when tempted to circumvent them. TR was never the aspiring autocrat that critics depicted, but his unshakeable self-​belief and desire for action resulted on more than one occasion in an impatience with aspects of democracy and the rule of law. A tendency to dismiss opponents as unscrupulous, ignorant, or unpatriotic limited his room for maneuver. In all likelihood,

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he would have enjoyed greater success in courting Democrats and principled dissenters such as Eugene Hale had he not held them in such contempt. After he left the White House, TR’s darker impulses had freer rein. His hatred of Wilson exceeded anything justified by policy differences or the president’s performance and imbued Roosevelt’s rhetoric with an unsavory quality. This hampered him and the GOP during the 1916 election, when Democratic strategists emphasized his controversial status—​especially in their pitch to German-​American voters. It also allowed Wilson to co-​opt TR’s increasingly resonant themes of Americanism and preparedness, even as Democrats attacked him as an intolerant warmonger. Roosevelt’s impatience with opposing viewpoints grew even more acute during the war; his treatment of antiwar activists such as Robert La Follette was a career low. Another nadir was his call to link the right to vote with military service, which would not have been out of place in a fascist society. Though such blemishes cannot be ignored, they do not outweigh TR’s many accomplishments, nor should they serve as a cautionary tale about the limitations of the U.S. system. In fact, it is difficult to imagine Rooseveltian statecraft outside the context of domestic politics. Many of his most impressive attributes—​his love of country, his respect for the people, his skill in evaluating and influencing public sentiment, and his ability to leverage that support in battles with Congress and members of the eastern elite—​were honed through years of practicing the nuts and bolts of democratic politics. Even TR’s great power diplomacy, often conducted out of the spotlight, underscored his mastery of the politics of foreign policy. These interventions generally succeeded and, to the extent that they attracted attention, left his public standing untarnished. Perhaps the best way to encapsulate Roosevelt’s approach is that he understood and took advantage of the ways in which the international and domestic aspects of foreign policy overlap in the U.S. system. As Henry White observed, Roosevelt “combined the qualities of an able politician at home with those of an equally good diplomatist abroad.”8 This is a fitting epitaph for one of the most remarkable statesman in history—​and an apt summary of how to conduct an effective foreign policy.

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Notes

Introduction 1. For useful discussions of various aspects of the relationship between domestic politics and foreign policy, see Fredrik Logevall, “Politics and Foreign Relations,” Journal of American History 95 (March 2009):  1074–​1078; Fredrik Logevall, “Party Politics,” in Encyclopedia of American Foreign Policy, ed. Alexander DeConde, Richard D. Burns, and Frederik Logevall, 3: 99–​111; Thomas Schwartz, “‘Henry,  .  .  .Winning an Election Is Terribly Important’:  Partisan Politics in the History of U.S. Foreign Relations,” Diplomatic History 33 (April 2009):  177; Campbell Craig and Fredrik Logevall, America’s Cold War: The Politics of Insecurity; Jussi Hanhimäki, “Global Visions and Parochial Politics: The Persistent Dilemma of the American Century,” Diplomatic History 27 (September 2003):  423–​447; Robert David Johnson, “Congress and the Cold War,” Journal of Cold War Studies 3 (Spring 2001): 76–​100; Melvin Small, Democracy and Diplomacy: The Impact of Domestic Politics on U.S. Foreign Policy, 1789–​1994; Ralph B. Levering, The Public and American Foreign Policy, 1918–​1978. 2. Notable books in this area include John A. Thompson, Woodrow Wilson; Steven Casey, Cautious Crusade: Franklin D. Roosevelt, American Public Opinion, and the War against Nazi Germany; Steven Casey, Selling the Korean War:  Propaganda, Politics, and Public Opinion, 1950–​ 1953; Andrew L.  Johns, Vietnam’s Second Front: Domestic Politics, the Republican Party, and the War; John E. Mueller, War, Presidents and Public Opinion; Douglas C. Foyle, Counting the Public In: Presidents, Public Opinion, and Foreign Policy; Ole R. Holsti, Public Opinion and American Foreign Policy; Helen V. Milner and Dustin Tingley, Sailing the Water’s Edge: The Domestic Politics of American Foreign Policy. 3. Walter Lippmann, “Democracy, Foreign Policy and the Split Personality of the Modern Statesman,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 102 ( July 1922): 190–​193; Hans Morgenthau, Politics among Nations: The Struggle

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Notes to pages 3–5

for Power and Peace, 141–​142; Gabriel Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy; Thomas Bailey, The Man in the Street: The Impact of American Public Opinion on Foreign Policy, 1–​13 and 318–​319; George F. Kennan, American Diplomacy, 1900–​ 1950, 37, 46, 61–​66, 84, and 93. For a useful overview of the coalescence, and subsequent criticism, of this school of thought, see Ole R. Holsti, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy:  Challenges to the Almond-​Lippmann Consensus,” International Studies Quarterly 36 (December 1992): 439–​466. 4. This work focuses on public opinion after World War I. Hence, questions could be raised about its relevance for the pre–​World War I era. However, at a minimum this scholarship provides food for thought about the interpretation of Lippmann and others and its impact on studies of TR. 5. The foremost example of this school of thought is still Howard K. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power, published in 1956 (hereafter Theodore Roosevelt). See especially 448–​462. Among the books that follow, to one degree or another, Beale’s line of analysis, are William Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility:  The Life and Times of Theodore Roosevelt, 182; Raymond Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries, 1–​3; Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, 39–​44; William Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire:  A Study in Presidential Statecraft, xi; Colin Dueck, Hard Line: The Republican Party and U.S. Foreign Policy since World War II, 14–​16; Joseph Nye, Presidential Leadership and the Creation of the American Era,  23–​26. 6. For the best, albeit only partial, revisions of the prevailing interpretation, see John Milton Cooper’s The Warrior and the Priest and William C.  Widenor’s Henry Cabot Lodge and the Search for an American Foreign Policy (hereafter Lodge). These books acknowledge that Roosevelt, in spite of his appreciation of the new, much more influential place the United States occupied in international affairs, gave precedence to domestic politics. According to Widenor, this was mostly a matter of necessity and not of choice. In the view of both authors, Roosevelt was limited—​and often deeply frustrated—​by the contentious nature of the U.S. political system and the unwillingness of his countrymen to play the new, internationalist role open to the United States. See Widenor, Lodge, 121–​170. Where Cooper differs from Widenor is in recognizing that Roosevelt placed such importance on politics at home because he conceived of the foreign and the domestic as “related parts of a single outlook.” See Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 70 and 112. 7. TR to George Otto Trevelyan, March 9, 1905, Elting E. Morison, ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt (hereafter Letters) 4: 1132; TR, “The Right of the People to Rule,” speech in New York City, March 20, 1912, The Works of Theodore Roosevelt (hereafter Works) 17: 151. See also Richard Hofstadter, Age of Reform: From Bryan to F.D.R., 260–​266, though in my view TR was less conservative than Hofstadter contends. 8. To be sure, the term “isolationism” is contested and recent literature, especially in the cultural realm, has begun to challenge, or at least add nuance to, long-​held

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Notes to pages 5–9

189

assumptions on the subject. See, for instance, Christopher McKnight Nichols, Promise and Peril: America at the Dawn of a Global Age, as well as the review of his book by Jay Sexton et  al., “Review of Christopher McKnight Nichols’ Promise and Peril,” Journal of American Studies 46 (November 2012):  1077–​ 1094. However, interpretations of Roosevelt’s diplomacy, as opposed to the broader cultural context during this period, remain largely untouched by this more recent work. 9. See, for example, James Rosenau, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy, 33–​73; Almond, The American People and Foreign Policy, 138–​ 141; Bailey, The Man in the Street, 1–​13; Philip J. Powlick, “The Sources of Public Opinion for American Foreign Policy Officials,” International Studies Quarterly 39 (December 1995):  427–​451; Holsti, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy”; Douglas C. Foyle, “Public Opinion and Foreign Policy:  Elite Beliefs as a Mediating Variable,” International Studies Quarterly 41 (March 1997):  141–​ 169; Thomas W. Graham, “Public Opinion and U.S. Foreign Policy Decision Making,” in David A. Deese, ed., The New Politics of American Foreign Policy, 191–​215; and Benjamin Y. Shapiro and Benjamin I. Page, “Foreign Policy and Public Opinion,” 216–​235, in Deese, The New Politics of American Foreign Policy. 10. Women’s suffrage in the United States was established nationwide only after passage of the Nineteenth Amendment, in 1920. 11. Ernest R. May, American Imperialism: A Speculative Essay,  17–​24. 12. On the importance of ethnic politics during TR’s era, see Alexander DeConde, Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy: A History,  69–​98. 13. May, American Imperialism, 24–​27; Bailey, The Man in the Street,  6–​7. 14. George Juergens, News from the White House: The Presidential-​Press Relationship in the Progressive Era,  5–​6. 15. For the profound influence that his early life and career in New York had upon TR, see Edward P. Kohn, Heir to the Empire City: New York and the Making of Theodore Roosevelt. 16. Logevall, “Politics and Foreign Relations,” 1077. See also Melvin Small, At the Water’s Edge: American Politics and the Vietnam War, ix. 17. Among the most important books on U.S. public diplomacy are Nicholas Cull, The Cold War and the United States Information Agency: American Propaganda and Public Diplomacy, 1945–​1989 and Justin Hart, Empire of Ideas: The Origins of Public Diplomacy and the Transformation of U. S. Foreign Policy. U.S. cultural diplomacy originated in the nineteenth century, as a substantial body of literature documents, but this research has little relevance to my focus. 18. TR regularly ranks among the top U.S. presidents, according to historians. See, for instance, C-​SPAN’s “Presidential Historians Survey 2017” where he stands in fourth place in terms of his conduct of foreign policy and in fourth place overall: https://​www.c-​span.org/​presidentsurvey2017/​?page=overall.

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Notes to pages 10–14 C h a p t er   1

1. Theodore Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, 47; Edmund Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 117–​118. Also, as perhaps the most careful student of TR’s early years has observed, Roosevelt would probably not have had the freedom to spurn the law had he not been able to rely on his wealthy father for his upkeep. See Carelton Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 1, The Formative Years, 1858–​1886, 220. 2. Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, 48–​53; Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 123–​140; Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, 242–​248. 3. John Morton Blum, The Republican Roosevelt,  7–​10. 4. Juergens, News from the White House, 5–​11; Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought:  The Transformation of America, 1815–​1848, 5–​7, 230, and 496; Robert Hilderbrand, Power and the People:  Executive Management of Public Opinion in Foreign Affairs, 1897–​1921, 4. 5. David Greenberg calls TR the first modern practitioner of what we now call “spin.” See Greenberg, “Beyond the Bully Pulpit,” Wilson Quarterly 35 (Summer 2011): 22–​29. 6. Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 158–​ 181; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility,  4–​5. 7. New York Times, May 23, 29, and 30, 1889; John M. Thompson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Press,” in Serge Ricard, ed., A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt, 216–​220. 8. Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, 271. 9. Robert Friedenberg, Theodore Roosevelt and the Rhetoric of Militant Decency, xvii; Doris Kearns Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt and the Golden Age of Journalism, x; Philip C. Jessup, Elihu Root 1: 453; Daniel Walker Howe, “American Victorianism as a Culture,” American Quarterly 27 (December 1975): 525. For TR’s use of the term “preach,” see, for instance, his famous speech “The Strenuous Life” on April 10, 1899, Works 15: 267. For an analysis of TR’s tendency to preach, see John Milton Cooper, Woodrow Wilson: A Biography, 4 and 174. On TR’s moral seriousness, see also Frederick Marks, Velvet on Iron: The Diplomacy of Theodore Roosevelt, 89–​128; James R.  Holmes, Theodore Roosevelt and World Order:  Police Power in International Relations,  10–​11. 10. Thompson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Press,” 219. 11. Ray Stannard Baker, “Theodore Roosevelt:  A Character Sketch,” McClure’s, November 1898. For early correspondence, see, for instance, TR to Baker, November 4, 1898, Baker Papers, reel 24. For similarly laudatory articles by another prominent muckraker, see Lincoln Steffens, “Theodore Roosevelt, Governor” and “Governor Roosevelt—​as an Experiment,” McClure’s, May 1899 and June 1900. The president famously argued in 1906 that muckraking journalism could be counterproductive if not balanced by more positive reporting. As a result of this and other disagreements, TR and Baker split, and Baker served as President Woodrow

19



Notes to pages 14–20

191

Wilson’s press liaison. See also Thompson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Press,” 219 and Goodwin, The Bully Pulpit, x, 231–​233, 722, and 747. 12. TR to Bishop, November 6, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 332. 13. Thompson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Press,” 219 and 221; Bishop to TR, August 30, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59. 14. Juergens, News from the White House, 20. 15. TR to Mrs. Thaddeus Horton, May 15, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 337. 16. TR to J. C. Smith, June 16, 1900, Letters 2: 1334; TR to G. O. Shields, January 22, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 340; TR to George Cary Eggleston, April 20, 1902, Letters 3: 252–​253; Oscar King Davis, Released for Publication: Some Inside Political History of Theodore Roosevelt and His Times, 1898–​1918, 123–​124. Ananias is a character in the New Testament who drops dead after lying to Peter. 17. Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 521; TR to William Wirt Kimball, September 18, 1897, Letters 1: 681; Juergens, News from the White House, 74 and 79. 18. William M. Gibson, Theodore Roosevelt among the Humorists: W. D. Howells, Mark Twain, and Mr. Dooley, 43–​65; TR to Dunne, November 28, 1899, Letters 2: 1099. 19. David Greenberg, Republic of Spin: An Inside History of the American Presidency, 25–​35; Juergens, News from the White House, 15–​16 and 46–​48. 20. For Hay’s correspondence with Strachey, see, for instance, Hay to Strachey, June 13, 1899, and for The Spectator’s influence with elites in the United States, see David D. Thompson, editor of the Northwestern Christian Advocate of Chicago, to Strachey, August 25, 1908, both in Strachey Papers, box 26, folder 1. TR to Strachey, October 5, 1901; July 18, 1902; and December 5, 1904, Strachey Papers, box 28, folder 1. 21. G.  Wallace Chessman, Governor Theodore Roosevelt:  The Albany Apprenticeship, 1898–​1900, 155–​157, 282–​284, and 300–​306. 22. See TR’s correspondence with Henry Cabot Lodge between May and November 1884, in Letters 1: 68–​88; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 37–​43. Of course, TR briefly split from the party in 1912 when he ran for president as the nominee of the Progressive Party. However, this occurred only after he failed to gain the Republican nomination, and he returned to the fold a few years later. See ­chapter 7 in this book for more details. For Lodge’s quote, see Putnam, Theodore Roosevelt, 428–​429. 23. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, July 28, 1884, Letters 1: 75. For the mugwumps, Godkin, and his relationship with TR, see Robert L. Beisner, Twelve against Empire: The Anti-​imperialists, 1898–​1900, 5–​17 and 53–​83. 24. TR, “The College Graduate and Public Life,” Works 13: 39. 25. TR, “True Americanism,” April 1894, Works 13: 15. Many students of the period prior to his presidency have identified TR’s nationalism as a fundamental element of his worldview. See Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 23–​26; Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 30–​31; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 33–​34; Joshua David Hawley,

192

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Notes to pages 20–24

Theodore Roosevelt: Preacher of Righteousness, 75–​90; Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 478–​479; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 221. 26. Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 10; David McCullough, Mornings on Horseback: The Story of an Extraordinary Family, a Vanished Way of Life, and the Unique Child Who Became Theodore Roosevelt, 56–​64; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 7–​8; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 284. 27. Widenor, Lodge, 49; Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 143–​144. 28. TR, “True Americanism,” 15. 29. TR to Lodge, May 5, 25 and 26 and TR to Anna Roosevelt, June 8, 1884, Letters 1:  68–​72; TR to Lodge, June 18, 1884, Lodge Papers, reel 1; Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 240–​259. 30. TR, “Memorandum,” February 10, 1908, Letters 6:  935; Widenor, Lodge, 127 and 129. 31. TR to Lodge, September 1895 and December 4 and 9, 1896, Letters 1: 480–​481, 567–​568, and 570, and July 1, 1899, Letters 2:  1023; Lodge to Senator Thomas C. Platt, September 3, to President William McKinley, October 25, to TR undated (sometime between July 8 and 12) and on October 25, 1898, all in Lodge Papers, reel 2; Widenor, Lodge, 127 and 129; Morris, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt, 747–​767. 32. Widenor, Lodge,  69–​70. 33. Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, 267. 34. For a similar conclusion, see Widenor, Lodge, 88. For rhetoric from Lodge that was essentially indistinguishable from that of Roosevelt, especially regarding the need for a world-​class navy, see, for instance, his speech to the Middlesex Club in Boston in late 1901. A clipping from the Boston Herald, November 10, 1901, can be found in the Lodge Papers, reel 178. 35. TR, “The Record of the Democratic Party,” Works 14: 57. For the effect that the Civil War had upon TR and his family, see Kathleen Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt: A Strenuous Life,  26–​35. 36. TR, “The Independents Who Would Not Bolt,” Works 14: 43. 37. Widenor, Lodge, 52. 38. TR, “The National Issues of 1884,” Works 14: 48. 39. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, January 6, 1896, and TR to Anna Roosevelt Cowles, March 9, 1896, Letters 1: 508 and 520. 40. TR, “The Reunited People,” Works 16: 27. 41. TR, “The National Issues of 1884,” Works 14: 47. 42. TR, “The President’s Policy,” North American Review 141 (October 1885): 396. 43. Albert Shaw, “Theodore Roosevelt as Political Leader,” Works 14: xvi. 44. Chessman, Governor Theodore Roosevelt, 200–​280 and 301. 45. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 55–​80, 176–​180, 253–​265, and 335–​337; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries, 25–​65; Robert E. Osgood, Ideals and Self-​ Interest in America’s Foreign Relations: The Great Transformation of the Twentieth Century, 27–​ 85; Serge Ricard, “Theodore Roosevelt:  Imperialist or Global

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Notes to pages 24–27

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Strategist in the New Expansionist Age?” and William Tilchin, “For the Present and the Future:  The Well-​Conceived, Successful, and Farsighted Statecraft of President Theodore Roosevelt,” Diplomacy & Statecraft 19 (December 2008): 639–​ 657 and 658–​670; Simon Rofe, “Europe as the Nexus of Theodore Roosevelt’s International Strategy,” in Hans Krabbendam and John M.  Thompson, eds., America’s Transatlantic Turn:  Theodore Roosevelt and the “Discovery” of Europe, 179–​196; Rofe, “Preparedness and Defense: The Origins of Theodore Roosevelt’s Strategy for the United States on the International Stage,” in Ricard, A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt, 78–​93; Bradford Perkins, The Great Rapprochement: England and the United States, 1895–​1914,  5–​11. 46. TR, The Winning of the West; Michael Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy, 126–​ 133; Frank Ninkovich, The United States and Imperialism, 9–​47; Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880–​1917, 170–​ 216; David Burton, “Theodore Roosevelt:  Confident Imperialist,” Review of Politics 23 ( July 1961):  356–​377; Thomas Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, 123–​142; Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt, 86; Greg Russell, “Theodore Roosevelt, Geopolitics, and Cosmopolitan Ideals,” Review of International Studies 32 ( July 2006): 551; Kirstin Hoganson, Fighting for American Manhood:  How Gender Politics Provoked the Spanish-​American and Philippine-​ American Wars, quote on 144; Matthew Frye Jacobson, Barbarian Virtues:  The United States Encounters Foreign Peoples at Home and Abroad, 1876–​1917, 131. 47. Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 7, makes a similar point about TR’s primary professional focus, though the relevant sections about foreign policy (61–​63, 125–​126, and 139–​140) fit comfortably within the prevailing interpretation about public opinion and domestic politics. 48. TR to John Hay, May 25 and July 18, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 331 and Letters 3: 520; TR to Congressman Lucius N. Littauer, July 22, 1903, Letters 3: 524; Taylor Stults, “Roosevelt, Russian Persecution of Jews, and American Public Opinion,” Jewish Social Studies 33 ( January 1971):  13–​22; Tyler Dennett, John Hay:  From Poetry to Politics, 395–​397. 49. TR to Elihu Root, June 2, 1904, Letters 4: 810; clipping from the New-​York Tribune, November 3, 1904, in Raikes to Lansdowne, November 4, 1904, British National Archives, Foreign Office file (hereafter FO) 5 2550. 50. Dennett, John Hay, 401–​402. 51. Lodge, “Our Blundering Foreign Policy,” The Forum 19 (March 1895): 8–​17. 52. TR, speech in Detroit, September 7, 1900, Works 14: 381. 53. TR, “The Foreign Policy of President Harrison,” Works 14: 140; TR, “The Monroe Doctrine,” Works 13: 181; TR, letter to the editors of the Harvard Crimson, January 7, 1896 (this was released to the press; see, for example, New York Times, January 7, 1896). 54. New  York Times, May 31, 1902; Richard E.  Welch, Response to Imperialism:  The United States and the Philippine-​ American War, 1899–​ 1902, 133–​ 149; Stuart

194

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Notes to pages 27–30

Creighton Miller, “Benevolent Assimilation”:  The American Conquest of the Philippines, 1899–​1903, 208–​263; New  York Times, February 25, April 9, 17, and 24, May 5–​7, 9, 23, 27, and 30, June 8, 15, 17, 24, and 25, 1902. Assorted newspaper clippings reacting favorably to a speech by Lodge in the Senate on May 5, 1902, can be found in the Lodge Papers, reel 178. 55. TR to Long, February 19, 1898, Letters 1: 780. TR had multiple motives for writing this letter to his superior: he strongly advocated intervening in Cuba and he wanted to warn Long about the political dangers of postponing action. 56. Widenor, Lodge, 150; Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 125; Tilchin, “For the Present and the Future,” 659; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries, 2; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 454–​455. 57. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, April 16, 1886, Letters 1: 97. 58. Marks, Velvet on Iron, 117 and 138; Russell, “Theodore Roosevelt, Geopolitics, and Cosmopolitan Ideals,” 541–​559; Holmes, Theodore Roosevelt and World Order, 85 and 90. 59. TR, “The Monroe Doctrine,” 177. 60. TR, “The Right of the People to Rule,” Address in New  York, March 20, 1912, Works 17: 151; TR to Alfred Borden, November 2, 1910, Letters 7: 156. 61. TR, “The Menace of the Demagogue,” speech in Chicago, October 15, 1896, Works 14: 273; TR to Frederick Scott Oliver, August 9, 1906, Letters 5: 351; TR, “Citizenship in a Republic,” speech in Paris, New-​York Tribune, April 24, 1910; TR to George Otto Trevelyan, March 9, 1905, Letters 4: 1132. 62. TR, “God Save the State,” Address in Washington, DC, October 25, 1903, Works 13:  551; “Some Recent Criticism of America,” Eclectic Magazine 48 (November 1888): 585. 63. “Gouverneur Morris” (1888), Works 7: 443. 64. TR, “God Save the State”; TR to Edward A.  Ross, September 19, 1907, Letters 5: 794–​795. 65. TR, “The Shaping of Public Opinion and the Ninth Commandment,” March 28, 1911, Works 13: 667. 66. TR to Mahan, March 18, 1901, Letters 3: 23. 67. The tour was cut short due to an accident. Nevertheless, the treaty was approved in November 1903. See Richard H.  Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean:  The Panama Canal, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Latin American Context, 524–​527; New York Times, July 7, 1902, clipping in Political Archives of the German Foreign Office, Politische Abteilung IA (hereafter IA) R 17272; TR Message to Congress, June 13, 1902, text in New-​York Tribune, June 14, 1902; Second Annual Message, December 2, 1902, Works 15: 150. 68. Perkins, The Great Rapprochement, 119–​155. 69. Perkins, The Great Rapprochement, 58; Hay to John St. Loe Strachey, February 1, 1900, John St. Loe Strachey Papers, box 26, folder 1; Dennett, John Hay, 35–​196.

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Notes to pages 31–36

195

70. TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, July 25, 1900, and to Spring Rice, July 20, 1900, Letters 2:  1362 and 1359; Dennett, John Hay, 95–​100 and 218–​239; Perkins, The Great Rapprochement, 55–​58; Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire, 8–​9 and  36–​48. 71. New-​York Tribune, April 27, 1907. 72. Manfred Jonas, The United States and Germany:  A Diplomatic History, 15–​64; Edward P.  Kohn, “Pride and Prejudice:  Theodore Roosevelt’s Boyhood Contact with Europe,” in Krabbendam and Thompson, America’s Transatlantic Turn, 22–​ 25; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility,  84–​85. 73. Washington Post, May 21 and August 6, 1902; The Sun, May 27, 1902; New York Times, June 1, 1902. A resolution was introduced by Congressman John H. Stephens, a Democrat from Texas, on June 1, 1902, which declared that “the acceptance of such a statue by this Government would be . . . an admission that one man may govern a nation without the consent of the governed and after his death have his statue erected in our Republic and the divine right of kings to rule thereby approved.” The debate can be followed between May and December 1902 in IA R 17333. 74. TR to Lodge, March 27 and June 19 and to Sternburg, October 11, 1901, Letters 3: 31, 97–​98, and 1723. 75. Clippings from the Illinois Staats-​Zeitung, March 27, 1903, and New  Yorker Handelszeitung, June 21, 1902, in IA R 17334 and 17333. C h a p t er   2 1. Von Quadt to von Bülow, October 29, 1902, IA R 17402. See also Nancy Mitchell, The Danger of Dreams: German and American Imperialism in Latin America (hereafter Dreams), 82–​84; Jonas, The United States and Germany,  69–​70. 2. Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-​Century America, 12–​13; “First Annual Message” and “Second Annual Message,” Works 15:  116–​117 and 158; TR to Charles Eliot, April 4, 1904, Letters 4:  769. Serge Ricard, “The Roosevelt Corollary,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (March 2006): 19; Burton, “Theodore Roosevelt,” 356–​377; Ninkovich, The United States and Imperialism, 209; Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, 141–​142; Emily Rosenberg, Financial Missionaries to the World: The Politics and Culture of Dollar Diplomacy,  31–​41. 3. TR to Sternburg, July 11, 1901, Letters 3: 115–​117; “First Annual Message,” Works 15:  116–​117; Minister W.  F. Powell to John Hay, September 3, 6, 7, and 9, 1902, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS) 1902, 644–​650; New York Times, June 27 and 29 and September 7, 9–​11, 21, 23, 1902; Mitchell, Dreams, 76–​ 79; Warren Kneer, Great Britain and the Caribbean, 1901–​1913: A Study in Anglo-​ American Relations, 1–​6; Dexter Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 331–​332. 4. Mitchell, Dreams, 9–​63; Richard Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 1898–​1914, 15–​17; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 403; Alfred L. P. Dennis, Adventures in American Diplomacy, 1896–​ 1906, 291–​ 292; Seward Livermore,

196

196

Notes to pages 36–38

“Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902–​ 1903,” American Historical Review 51 (April 1946): 452–​471. 5. Ricard, “The Roosevelt Corollary,” 21–​23; Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 319–​321; TR to Lodge, June 19, 1901, Letters 3: 97–​98. See also TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, July 3, 1901, and to Sternburg, July 12 and March 6, 1902, Letters 3: 108–​ 109, 116, and 239; TR to Sternburg, October 11, 1901, and March 6, 1902, Letters 3: 172–​173 and 239–​240. See also TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, July 3, 1901, and to Sternburg, July 12 and March 6, 1902, Letters 3: 108–​109, 116, and 239. 6. TR to Edward Hale, December 17, 1901, Letters 3: 209. 7. On the eve of the blockade, Italy was added as a junior partner, though it played only a minor role in the events that followed. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 1–​ 94; Kneer, Great Britain and the Caribbean, 1901–​1913, 7, 11–​13, and 24; Mitchell, Dreams,  71–​85. 8. FRUS 1901, 192–​196; Lord Lansdowne to Sir Michael Herbert, November 11 and Herbert to Lansdowne, November 13, 1902, British and Foreign State Papers 95: 1081–​1082 and 1084; Mitchell, Dreams, 80; Isaac N. Seligman to Hay, November 28, 1902, and Hay to Seligman, December 2, 1902, Hay Papers, reels 2 and 6. 9. Minister Herbert Bowen to John Hay, December 13 and 14, 1902, FRUS 1903, 796–​797; Evening Star, December 11, 1902; New York Times, December 15, 1902. 10. New-​York Tribune, December 12, 16, and 17, 1902; Chicago Tribune, December 12, 16, and 19, 1902; Commercial Advertiser, December 11, 12, 15, and 17, 1902; The Outlook, December 13 and 20, 1902. 11. The Constitution, December 17, 1902; St. Louis Post-​Dispatch, December 15, 1902. See also The Constitution, December 15 and 19, 1902; Harper’s Weekly, December 20, 1902; New  York American, December 13, 15, 18, and 19, 1902; San Francisco Examiner, December 15 and 18, 1902; Courier-​Journal (Louisville), December 11, 12, and 17, 1902; Irish-​American (New York City), December 13 and 20, 1902; Milwaukee Journal, December 16, 1902. 12. San Francisco Examiner, December 15, 1902; Courier-​Journal, December 12, 1902. See also American Monthly Review of Reviews, January 1903; Commercial Advertiser, December 22, 1902; Harper’s Weekly, December 20 and 27, 1902, and January 3 and 10, 1903; New York American, December 13, 18, 20, and 21, 1902; New York Times, December 14, 16, and 19, 1902; New-​York Daily Tribune, December 12 and 16, 1902; San Francisco Examiner, December 16, 1902; St. Louis Post-​Dispatch, December 15, 1902; Courier-​Journal, December 11 and 17, 1902; Evening Post (New York City), December 12, 1902; Milwaukee Journal, December 16 and 19, 1902; The World, December 16, 1902. The Irish-​American of New York City was a partial exception to this trend. It expressed disapproval for Germany’s actions but, not surprisingly, reserved its most vehement criticism for “John Bull.” See December 13, 20, and 27, 1902, and January 17 and 31, 1903. 13. New  York Herald, December 15, 19, and 21, 1902; New-​Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, December 16–​20, 1902.

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Notes to pages 38–41

197

14. New-​Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, December 16 and 17, 1902. 15. Evening Star, December 13, 1902; Commercial Advertiser, December 13 and 16, 1902; Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 2nd Session, December 12, 1902, 272; Evening Star, December 13, 1902. See also a statement from Senator Henry Teller, a Democrat from Colorado, in the New York Times, December 14, 1902. 16. Minister Herbert Bowen to John Hay, December 11, 1902, FRUS 1903, 791–​792; White to Hay, December 15, 1902, Record Group (hereafter RG) 59, M30, reel 193. See also White to Hay, December 16 and 17, 1902, in RG 59, M30, reel 193; White to Balfour, December 20 and White to Hay, December 31, 1902, White Papers, reel 5. This argument dovetailed with reports from the British Embassy in Washington. See, for instance, Herbert to Lansdowne, December 16, 1902, FO 5 2489. 17. Von Quadt to the Foreign Office, December 18, 1902, Johannes Lepsius et al., eds., Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette, 1871–​1914 17: 269 (hereafter GP). 18. According to the New York American (December 5, 1902), on the U.S. side there were seven battleships, nineteen torpedo and gunboats, and 560 guns in total, compared to one battleship, three torpedo and gunboats, and 318 total guns for the Europeans; Seward W. Livermore, “Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902–​1903,” American Historical Review 51 (April 1946): 458–​466. 19. New  York Times, December 17, 1902; Evening Star, December 17 and 18, 1902; Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1902; Rear Admiral Henry C. Taylor to Secretary of the Navy William H. Moody, December 14 and 25, 1902, William H. Moody Papers, container 5; Livermore, “Theodore Roosevelt, the American Navy, and the Venezuelan Crisis of 1902–​1903,” 461; Paul Holbo, “Perilous Obscurity:  Public Diplomacy and the Press in the Venezuelan Crisis, 1902–​1903,” The Historian 32 (May 1970): 428–​448. 20. Evening Star, December 16, 1902; Holbo, “Perilous Obscurity,” 430. 21. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 403–​ 419; William Tilchin, “Setting the Foundation:  Theodore Roosevelt and the Construction of an Anglo-​American Special Relationship,” William Tilchin and Charles Neu, eds., Artists of Power: Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Their Enduring Impact on U.S. Foreign Policy, 48; Marks, Velvet on Iron, 39–​41; Edmund Morris, “A Matter of Extreme Urgency: Theodore Roosevelt, Wilhelm II, and the Venezuela Crisis of 1902,” Naval War College Review 55 (Spring 2002): 73–​85. 22. Evening Star, December 16, 1902. See also the New York Times, December 16 and 17, 1902; Commercial Advertiser, December 15 and 17, 1902. 23. Widenor, Lodge, 150–​151, makes a similar point. 24. Evening Star, December 16, 1902. 25. Commercial Advertiser, December 15 and 17, 1902; New-​York Tribune, December 17, 1902; The Outlook, December 20, 1902. 26. Republican Senator Nathan Bay Scott, of West Virginia, urged TR to warn Berlin and London to desist from any further violence and to emphasize the point by

198

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Notes to pages 41–43

positioning Dewey’s fleet off the Venezuelan coast. See the New  York American, December 16, 1902. See also Harper’s Weekly, January 10, 1903; New York American, December 13, 15–​17, 1902; New York Herald, December 14, 16, and 19, 1902; The Constitution, December 13, 1902; Times-​Democrat, December 8, 1902. 27. Evening Star, December 16, 1902. See also Evening Star, December 17 and 18 and Chicago Tribune, December 17, 1902. 28. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 403, 413–​415, and 419–​420; Edward Parsons, “The German-​American Crisis of 1902–​1903,” The Historian 33 (November 1970): 444. 29. Herbert to Lansdowne, December 16, 1902, G.  P. Gooch and Harold William Vazeille Temperley, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–​1914 (hereafter Documents) 2: 162; von Quadt and von Holleben to the Foreign Office, December 18 and 16, 1902, Lepsius et al., GP 17: 269 and 264; Mitchell, Dreams, 82–​85 and 97; FRUS 1903, 423–​424, 455, and 799. 30. Henry White to John Hay, December 18, 1902, RG 59, M30, reel 193; Secretary of Treasury L. M. Shaw to Hay, December 18, 1902, and Milton E. Ailes, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Treasury, to Hay, December 20, 1902, Hay Papers, reel 16; Ailes to Hay, December 20, 1902, Hay Papers, reel 16; Hay to Isaac Seligman, December 23, 1902, RG 59, M40, reel 156. 31. Evening Star, December 23, 1902; New York Times, December 24, 1902; Commercial Advertiser, December 24, 1902; TR to Albert Shaw and to Carl Schurz, December 26, 1902, Letters 3: 396–​397. 32. For one journal that bucked the trend, see the Times-​Democrat, which on December 21 had opposed TR acting as arbitrator but reversed itself on December 25, 1902. The Constitution of Atlanta ran an editorial favoring the idea on December 23 but also endorsed TR’s decision to refuse the role of arbitrator a few days later on December 27, 1902. 33. James Sullivan Clarkson to TR, December 24, 1902, Roosevelt Papers, reel 31; Commercial Advertiser, December 22 and 26, 1902; Harper’s Weekly, January 3, 1903; New York Times, December 23 and 24, 1902; New-​York Tribune, December 22, 1902; Boston Post, December 23 and 26, 1902; Courier-Journal, December 20, 1902; Evening Post, December 22 and 23, 1902; Springfield Republican, December 22, 1902; The World, December 22, 1902. 34. Chicago Tribune, December 24, 1902; New  York Times, December 24, 1902; New  York Herald, December 23, 1902; Platt to TR, December 25, Shaw to TR, December 23, Carl Schurz to TR, December 23 and James Sullivan Clarkson to TR December 24, 1902, all in Roosevelt Papers, reel 31. 35. Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 385–​386; Münsterberg to TR, January 14, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 32; excerpt from the Congressional Record, January 20, 1903, IA R 17334; Donna Gabaccia, in Foreign Relations: American Immigration in Global Perspective, 122–​123 and 152–​155, recounts how, in a cruel twist of fate, Bartholdt, an opponent of German nationalism, became unelectable after 1912 because of anti-​German sentiment.

19



Notes to pages 43–46

199

36. New-​Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, February 3, 4, and 7, 1903; Von Schleinitz to TR, February 6, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 32. 37. Roosevelt to Münsterberg, January 17, 1903, Letters 3:  405; Frederick Holls to Cortelyou, January 15, 1903, and to TR, February 2, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 32; Roosevelt to Williams, January 23, 1903, Letters 3: 411; Williams to TR, January 24, 1903, and Joseph Bucklin Bishop to TR, January 26 and February 3, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 32. 38. For the first draft see TR to von Schleinitz, February 10, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 412. For the draft that was sent, see TR to von Schleinitz, February 10, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 330. 39. Harper’s Weekly, January 31, 1903; The Constitution, January 16, 1903; Boston Post, January 23, 1903; Collier’s Weekly, January 17, 1903; Chicago Tribune, January 20 and February 4, 1903; New-​York Tribune, January 23, 24, and 25, 1903; New York American, February 1, 1903. 40. New  York American and San Francisco Examiner, January 24, 1903; Times-​ Democrat, January 23 and 24, 1903. 41. Times-​Democrat, January 23, 1903; Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1903. 42. Washington Times, January 24, 1903. 43. New-​York Tribune, January 31, 1903; Evening Star, January 29 and 30, 1903; Commercial Advertiser, January 29 and 31, 1903; New York Times, January 30 and 31, 1903. 44. Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1903. See also Evening Star, January 23, 1903; White to Hay, February 7, 1903, White Papers, reel 5; Von Quadt to the Foreign Office, January 23, 1903, Lepsuis et  al., GP 17:  274; Herbert to Lansdowne, January 26 and 31, 1903, Gooch, Documents 2: 166 and 168; Thomas Wodehouse Legh, Lord Lansdowne: A Biography, 259; Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 111. 45. Evening Star, January 30 and New York Times and Commercial Advertiser, January 31, 1903; Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 113; Commercial Advertiser, January 31 and February 4, 1903. 46. Scholars still disagree whether or not TR issued an ultimatum and, if he did, the effect it had on Germany. For representative contributions from each side: among those who believe that TR issued an ultimatum, see Serge Ricard, “The Anglo-​ German Intervention in Venezuela and Theodore Roosevelt’s Ultimatum to the Kaiser: Taking a Fresh Look at an Old Enigma,” Anglo-​Saxonism in U.S. Foreign Policy:  The Diplomacy of Imperialism, 1899–​1919, 65–​77; for the skeptics, see Mitchell, Dreams,  87–​89. 47. White to Hay, January 24, 1903, and memorandum by Hay, January 25, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 32; Hay to White, February 9, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 4; Sternburg to the Foreign Office, January 31 and February 3, 1903, Lepsius et al., GP 17: 285–​286. 48. Admiral Taylor to TR, February 9, 1903, and memorandum from the Office of Naval Intelligence, February 11, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 32.

20

200

Notes to pages 46–53

49. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 424; Henry White to John Hay, February 7, 1903, White Papers, reel 5; White to Hay, February 10, 1903, FRUS 1903, 475. 50. New York Times, February 10–​14; Evening Star, February 9–​14; Henry White to John Hay, February 14 and Charlemagne Tower to John Hay, February 19, 1903, FRUS 1903, 437 and 475–​476. 51. Sternburg to von Bülow, March 1, 1903; see also clippings from many U.S. newspapers and a speech from Sternburg to the Hartford (Connecticut) Yacht Club on April 3, 1903. All can be found in IA R 17334. 52. Sternburg to von Bülow, February 10, 1905. See also Sternburg to von Bülow, May 27, 1903, for a report on a speech given by the British ambassador, Michael Herbert, in New York. Both can be found in IA R 17385. 53. Sternburg to von Bülow, March 9, and June 6, 1903, IA R 17235. The clipping from The World is included in the March 9 dispatch. 54. Sternburg to von Bülow, May 3, 1903, and John Callan O’Laughlin to Baron Oswald von Richthofen, Secretary of State of the Foreign Office, June 12, 1903, IA R 17235. 55. The State Secretary of the Imperial Naval Office to the Secretary of State of the Foreign Office, July 17, 1903, IA R 17235. 56. TR to John Hay, August 9, 1903, Letters 3: 549–​550; TR, “Americans of German Origin,” June 15, 1903, Works 16: 36–​38; Arthur von Briesen to TR, February 4, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 41. C h a p t er   3 1. David McCullough, The Path between the Seas: The Creation of the Panama Canal, 1870–​1914, 256–​259; Dwight C. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route: The Story of the Spooner Act and the Hay-​Herrán Treaty, 96–​118; New York Times, February 12, 1900; John Hay to TR, February 12, 1900, Roosevelt Papers, reel 4; TR to Alfred Thayer Mahan, February 14 and to Albert Shaw, February 15, 1900, Letters 2: 185–​187. 2. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 12–​17 and 70; Walter LaFeber, The Panama Canal: The Crisis in Historical Perspective, 8–​9 and 22; John Major, Prize Possession: The United States and the Panama Canal, 1903–​1979, 12; Miles P. Duval, Cadiz to Cathy: The Story of the Long Diplomatic Struggle for the Panama Canal, 36; McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 38. 3. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 17–​30; LaFeber, The Panama Canal, 11 and 18; McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 45–​203 and 259–​265; Morgan to Joaquin B. Calvo, September 17, 1903, Papers of John Tyler Morgan, reel 6; Joseph A. Fry, John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy, 198–​199. 4. TR to Anna Roosevelt, May 20, 1894, Letters 1: 379; TR to Alfred Thayer Mahan, May 3, 1897, Letters 1: 607; to John St. Loe Strachey, March 8, to Arthur Hamilton Lee, March 18 and April 24, 1901, Letters 3: 8–​9, 19–​21, and 64–​65; McCullough,

201



Notes to pages 53–56

201

The Path between the Seas, 266–​268 and 325–​327; Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 120–​121; TR to John Hay, August 19, 1903, Letters 3: 566–​567. 5. McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 264–​331; Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Session, January 28, 1902, 1048; Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 123 and 147–​156. For Morgan’s speeches, see Congressional Record, 57th Congress, 1st Session, June 4 and June 17, 6267–​6280, 6909, and 6921–​6935. 6. McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 59 and 329–​332; Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 157–​195; Hay to TR, September 7, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 4; Minister Arthur Beaupré to John Hay, September 5, 1903, FRUS 1903, 191–​192; John Major, Prize Possession,  32–​33. 7. For Gorman’s candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president in 1892, 1900, and 1904, see John Lambert, Arthur Pue Gorman, 176 and J.  Rogers Hollingsworth, The Whirligig of Politics: The Democracy of Cleveland and Bryan, 160–​161 and 209–​210. 8. New York American, September 24, 1903. 9. The World, September 23, 1903. For a good summary of the terms of the Spooner Act, see Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 156. See also New York Times, August 18, 1903; The World, August 15, 1903; New York American, September 24, 1903; and New York Herald, August 18, 1903. Morgan had been making this point for a long time. See Fry, John Tyler Morgan and the Search for Southern Autonomy, 226. 10. Schurman to TR, September 9, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 37, underlined in the original; American Monthly Review of Reviews, October 1903; Lodge to TR, September 5, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 36; Duval, Cadiz to Cathay, 264. 11. Evening Star, October 16, 1903; Hanna to TR, October 4, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 37. 12. For the history of Panama’s independence movement, see LaFeber, The Panama Canal, 19–​22. For speculation that Panama would secede in the wake of the Colombian senate vote, see, for example, Alvey Adee to John Hay, August 18, 1903, and Hay to TR, September 7, 1903, Hay Papers, reels 4 and 6; Harper’s Weekly, September 12, 19, and 26, 1903; American Monthly Review of Reviews, September and October, 1903; Chicago Tribune, August 18, 1903; Wall Street Journal, August 20 and September 25, 1903. 13. Springfield Republican, August 17, 1903. See also Evening Post, September 1 and 9, 1903; The Nation, September 17, 1903. 14. Evening Post, September 9 and The Nation, September 17, 1903. The Springfield Republican did not make this argument explicitly, as the Post and The Nation did, but it placed the blame for the failure of negotiations squarely at the feet of Bogotá. See Springfield Republican, August 17 and 19 and September 23 and 28, 1903. 15. Undated clipping from the Boston Transcript, probably from early 1902, found in von Holleben to von Bülow, April 29, 1902, IA R 17272. 16. TR to John Hay, August 19, 1903, Letters 3: 566–​567.

20

202

Notes to pages 56–59

17. TR to John Hay, August 19 and September 15, 1903, Letters 3:  566–​567 and 599; TR to Kipling, November 1, 1904, Letters 4:  1007–​1008. See also TR to Marcus A.  Hanna, October 5, 1903, Letters 3:  625; TR’s description of Mexicans as a “weaker race” as compared to the Texans of the mid-​nineteenth century in Works 7: 114; Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, 52–​53 and 140–​141. 18. TR to Kipling, November 1, 1904, Letters 4: 1007–​1008. 19. For the most thorough examination of this feature of TR’s thinking, see Marks, Velvet on Iron, 89–​117. See also Widenor, Lodge, 162–​167. 20. Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, 561; TR to Hay, September 15, 1903, Letters 3: 599. 21. Hanna to TR, October 5, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 37. 22. The Constitution, August 16 and 19, 1903. For similar comments, see Dun’s Review, September 26, 1903; New York American, August 18, 1903; The World, August 15 and September 23, 1903. 23. TR to Schurman, September 10, 1903, Letters 3: 595–​596. 24. TR to Shaw, October 7, 1903, Letters 3: 625–​626; TR to Shaw, October 10, 1903, Letters 3: 628. 25. John Hay to TR, September 13, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 4 and TR to Hay, September 15, 1903, Letters 3: 599. 26. See Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 427–​432 for a copy of the memorandum. 27. TR to John Hay, August 19, 1903, Letters 3: 566–​567. For good analyses of administration thinking on the Moore memorandum, see Major, Prize Possession, 35–​37 and Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 341–​347 and 350–​352. 28. See Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, 572–​574, for the draft text. 29. See, for example, John Hay to TR, September 7 and 13, 1904, Hay Papers, reel 4. 30. Charles D. Ameringer, “The Panama Canal Lobby of Philippe Bunau-​Varilla and William Nelson Cromwell,” American Historical Review 68 ( January 1963): 346–​ 363. Cromwell claimed to have converted Mark Hanna to the Panama cause, and it was Hanna who had introduced Cromwell to Roosevelt. See Hanna to TR, June 1, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 34; McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 276. For the correspondence regarding Cromwell, see Mark Hanna to John Hay, June 1, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 8; Alvey Adee to Hay, August 20, September 19, 22, 23, and 25, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 6. Most of this correspondence consisted of Adee keeping Hay informed of Cromwell’s attempts, on behalf of the New Panama Canal Company, to ascertain how large a bribe would suffice to remove the Colombian senate’s objections to the treaty. 31. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 347–​348; Ameringer, “The Panama Canal Lobby of Philippe Bunau-​ Varilla and William Nelson Cromwell,” 347–​ 348; McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 316–​323. 32. Philippe Bunau-​Varilla, Panama: The Creation, Destruction, and Resurrection, 295–​ 297, 310–​312, 316–​319, and 331; Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 356–​357 and

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Notes to pages 59–62

203

361; McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 350–​351; TR to John Bigelow, January 6, 1904, Letters 3: 689. 33. Evening Star, November 6, 1903; Hay to Beaupré, November 6, 1903, FRUS 1903, 225–​226; Charles D. Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-​Varilla:  New Light on the Panama Canal Treaty,” Hispanic American Historical Review 46 (February 1966): 34–​35. 34. The Panamanians were told that they would not be permitted to amend the treaty and, despite considerable anger and lacking other options, they ratified the treaty on December 2, 1903. See Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 378. 35. Two press releases, November 3, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 427. 36. Evening Post, November 4, 1903, and The World, November 6, 1903. See also Harper’s Weekly, November 7 and 14, 1903; New  York American, November 7, 1903; Courier-​Journal, November 5, 1903; Evening Post, November 5 and 6, 1903; New York Times, November 5, 6, 9, and 13, 1903; Springfield Republican, November 5 and 6, 1903. 37. New York Herald, November 5, 1903. See also the New York American, November 5, 1903; New York Times, November 5 and 7, 1903; and Courier-​Journal, November 5, 1903, which scolded TR for not turning to the Nicaragua route as soon as Colombia rejected the Hay-​Herran treaty. Even the Springfield Republican, a proponent of the Panama route, worried November 6, 1903, about the “the peril of national scandal” and argued that “if diplomatic means have failed to bring about a satisfactory arrangement with Colombia the President’s duty is to take up the Nicaragua route.” 38. Evening Star, November 9, 1903; Dallas Morning News, November 7, 1903; Mobile Register, November 7, 1903. 39. Hollingsworth, The Whirligig of Politics, 202–​206; Arthur S.  Raikes to the Marquess of Lansdowne, November 12, 1903, FO 5 2524; Wall Street Journal, November 5, 1903; New-​York Tribune, November 6, 1903; Butler to TR, November 9, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 38; Evening Star, November 7, 1903; Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1903. 40. TR to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., November 15, 1903, Letters 3: 652. 41. Evening Star, November 5, 1903; press release, November 6, 1903, Roosevelt papers, reel 427. 42. See, for example, The Constitution, November 6 and 7, 1903; Harper’s Weekly, November 21, 1903; The World, November 19, 1903; San Francisco Chronicle, November 9 and 18, 1903; The Independent, November 12 and 19, 1903; New-​York Tribune, November 7, 1903. 43. Evening Post, September 9, 1903; The Nation, September 17, 1903. 44. For a few examples of this see, in the press: The Constitution, November 6, 1903; The World, November 19, 1903; San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 1903; the political cartoon in Harper’s Weekly, November 21, 1903; The Independent, November 19, 1903. In Congress, see the speeches of, for example, Representative Robert

204

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Notes to pages 62–64

Hitt, Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, December 11, 1903, 136–​140; Senator Joseph Foraker, Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, December 17, 1903, 321–​324; Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, January 5, 1904, 459–​473. In TR’s mailbag, see, for example, John Burroughs to TR, December 6, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39. 45. For the House resolution calling for the White House to make public all the papers and correspondence relating to Panama, and TR’s transmission of the documents, see Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 1st Session, 151 and 260, November 9 and 16, 1903. See also New York Times, November 10, 17, and 18, 1903. 46. See, for example, New York Times, November 18, 1903; Evening Post, November 16 and 17, 1903; Springfield Republican, November 14 and 16, 1903. 47. Harper’s Weekly, November 28, 1903; The Independent, November 12 and 19, 1903; The Sun, November 18, 1903; Wall Street Journal, November 26, 1903; and New-​ York Tribune, November 7, 1903. 48. TR to Shaw, November 6, 1903. See TR to Sir Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, November 9 and to Jacob G. Schurman, November 12, 1903, Letters 3: 649 and 651; and to Lawrence Abbott November 12 and 13, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 332. See also John Hay to N. J. Manson, November 23, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 2. 49. TR to Hay, November 7, 1903, Letters 3: 649–​650; Hay to TR, November 16, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 4. 50. Evening Star, November 12, 1903; Courier-​Journal, November 17, 1903; New York American, January 15, 1904. 51. The World, November 19, 1903. See also the New York Herald, November 8 and 9, 1903; and Harper’s Weekly, November 21 and 28, 1903. 52. Terence Graham, The “Interests of Civilization”? Reaction in the United States against the “Seizure” of the Panama Canal Zone, 1903–​1904, 128–​129; TR to Dr.  T.  R. Lounsbury, January 16 and January 25, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 333; clipping from the Commercial Advertiser, Roosevelt Papers, reel 41. 53. For the rallying of Republican congressmen around TR, see Evening Star, November 9, 1903, and Chicago Tribune, November 9, 1903. The New-​York Tribune (November 7, 1903) and the Wall Street Journal (November 23 and 26, 1903) ran supportive editorials. The San Francisco Chronicle, an important Republican daily that had sharply criticized the administration and its support for the Panama route in August, came out in favor of administration policy. See November 9, 11, 14, and 18, 1903. 54. The Sun and the Chicago Tribune continued to run supportive editorials, as did Lawrence Abbott’s The Outlook and Shaw’s American Monthly Review of Reviews. 55. These included Dun’s Review (November 14 and 21, 1903), a financial journal in New  York; Life (November 26, 1903), a satirical journal in New  York; Puck (November 25), another satirical journal in New  York; and The Independent (November 12 and 19, 1903), an influential religious/​public affairs weekly.

205



Notes to pages 64–69

205

56. TR to Kermit Roosevelt, December 5, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 332. 57. Mobile Register, January 7, 1904; Howell to TR, February 24, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 42. 58. Dallas Morning News, November 13 and Times-​Democrat, December 16, 1903. See also the Times-​Democrat, November 8 and December 19, 1903; The Constitution, November 8, 10, and 12, December 17, 1903, and January 6, 1904; Mobile Register January 5 and 7, 1904; Dallas Morning News, December 11, 1903, and January 5 and 6, 1904. One scholar who examined a large sample of southern newspapers found that many of those that were critical of the administration’s tactics nevertheless embraced the outcome of the intervention. See Graham, The “Interests of Civilization”?,  45–​47. 59. McAdoo to TR, November 16, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 38. For McAdoo’s biography see John J.  Broesamle, William Gibbs McAdoo:  A Passion for Change, 1863–​1917. 60. William E. Chandler (President Spanish Treaty Claims Commission, Washington, DC; former secretary of the navy, former U.S. senator from New Hampshire, and formerly secretary of the Democratic State Executive Committee of Alabama) to TR, November 18, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 38. 61. Lyon to TR, December 3, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39. 62. [Unknown first name] Parker to TR, December 3, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39; John M. Allen to TR, December 23, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39. 63. TR to George Harvey, December 19, 1903, Letters 3:  673–​674; Shaw to TR, November 13, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 38. 64. Shaw to TR, November 13, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 38; TR to Graves, December 28, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 333; TR to Small, December 29, 1903, Letters 3: 685. 65. New-​York Tribune, November 18, 1903; Evening Star, December 15, 1903; New York Times, December 16, 1903; San Francisco Chronicle, December 17, 1903; Schurman to TR, December 21, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39; TR to Harvey, December 19, 1903, Letters 3: 673–​674. 66. Beisner, Twelve against Empire, 139–​164; TR to Otto Gresham, November 30, 1903, Letters 3: 662–​663. 67. TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, December 7, 1903, Letters 3: 665. 68. Albert Shaw to Albert J. Beveridge, December 9, 1903. See also Beveridge to Albert Shaw, July 9, 1902. Both letters can be found in Beveridge Papers, box 282. 69. TR to William Austin Wordsworth, December 14, 1903, Letters 3: 669; Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 38–​54; Lewis L. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 127–​128. 70. Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, 128–​142 and 257–​260, December 11 and 15, 1903. 71. Congressional Record, vol. 37, 58th Congress, 1st Session, 425–​433 and 443–​464, November 23 and 24, 1903; Congressional Record, vol. 37, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, 65, December 9, 1903.

206

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Notes to pages 69–73

72. Congressional Record, vol. 37, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, 316–​318, December 17, 1903; Congressional Record, vol. 37, 58th Congress, 1st Session, 425–​433, November 23, 1903. 73. Congressional Record, vol. 37, 58th Congress, 1st Session, 425–​433, November 23, 1903; Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, 614, January 12, 1904. 74. Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, 459–​473, January 5, 1904. 75. Annual message to Congress, December 7, 1903, FRUS 1903, xxxiii–​xxxiv, xxxvi–​ xxxvii, xxxix; Message to Congress, January 4, 1904, FRUS 1903, 261–​262, 273. 76. Message to Congress, January 4, 1904, FRUS 1903, 274, 275, and 260. 77. Annual message to Congress, December 7, 1903, FRUS 1903, xxxiii. 78. See “An Unheeded Plea,” dated November 3, 1903, and “Another Unheeded Plea,” dated November 1903, by President Marroquín. Both can be found in the Lodge Papers, reel 113. 79. Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 378. For TR’s annoyance with MacVeagh, see TR to John Bigelow, January 6, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 333 and to Henry Cabot Lodge, January 6, 1903, Letters 3: 690. 80. See, for example, Evening Star, December 9 through December 17, 1903; the New York American, December 20, 1903; Chicago Tribune, December 10, 16, and 18, 1903; The World, December 11 and 18, 1903; New York Times, December 8–​10, 1903; The Constitution, December 8, 10, 14–​16, and 18, 1903; San Francisco Chronicle, December 8–​10, 15, 17, 18, and 22, 1903. 81. The World, December 11, 18, and 23, 1903; New York American, December 20, 1903; The Nation, December 24, 1903. 82. TR to Charles S. Osborn, December 19, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 332. 83. McCullough, The Path between the Seas, 379; Duval, Cadiz to Cathay, 356–​363; Challener, Admirals, Generals and American Foreign Policy, 1898–​1914, 156–​158; Reyes to Hay, December 8 and Hay to Reyes, December 11, 1903, Hay Papers, reel 4. 84. Springfield Republican, December 11, 1903. See also Evening Post, December 31, 1903, and January 7, 1904. 85. Challener, Admirals, Generals and American Foreign Policy, 1898–​1914, 156–​157; TR to Leslie Mortimer Shaw, December 24, 1903, Letters 3: 678; TR to Admiral John Grimes Walker, December 23, 1903, Letters 3: 677; Reyes to Hay, December 29 and Hay to Reyes, December 30, 1903, FRUS 1903, 280–​281; Hay to Moody, December 24, 1903, William H.  Moody Papers, container 10; TR to Moody, December 21, 1903, Letters 3: 674. 86. General Rafael Reyes was in Washington negotiating with Hay for a share of the payment to Panama in return for Panama’s share in the Colombian debt. More importantly, he was lobbying, with the services of Wayne MacVeagh as counsel

207



Notes to pages 73–76

207

and lobbyist, to attempt to defeat the Hay-​Bunau-​Varilla treaty. See Bunau-​Varilla, Panama, 417; Miner, The Fight for the Panama Route, 378. 87. Lodge to TR, December 31, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39. 88. Major, Prize Possession, 52. The letter Major cites is TR to Otto Gresham, November 30, 1903, Letters 3: 662–​663. Other historians have neglected this episode altogether. 89. Charles F.  Loomis to TR, December 30, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39; TR to Loomis, January 4, 1904, Letters 3: 688–​689. 90. Lodge to TR, December 31, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39. 91. TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice and to Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., January 18, 1904, Morison Letters 3:  698–​699; TR to Mark Hanna, January 18, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 40; Acting Minister Snyder to Hay, January 2, 1903, T33, reel 61; memorandum by Minister Arthur Beaupré, January 11, 1904, T33, reel 61; Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-​Varilla: New Light on the Panama Canal Treaty,” 51. 92. TR to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, January 6, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 333; Ameringer, “Philippe Bunau-​Varilla: New Light on the Panama Canal Treaty,” 50–​ 51; Elihu Root to TR, December 11, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 39; Major, Prize Possession,  53–​54. 93. See Congressional Record, vol. 38, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, January 4, 1904, for the text of Bunau-​Varilla’s article in Le Matin and Morgan’s argument. 94. TR to Lodge, January 6, 1904, Letters 3: 690. See a similar letter to John Bassett Moore, January 6, 1904, Letters 3: 690–​691. 95. Loomis to TR, January 5, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 40; Moore to TR, January 7, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 40; TR to Bigelow, January 6, 1904, Letters 3: 689; TR to McBee, January 6, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 333; Bunau-​Varilla to Hay, January 7, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 40. Bunau-​Varilla sent Hay an extract from a letter from Dela Espriella, the Panamanian minister of foreign affairs, dated December 28, 1903. 96. Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 2nd Session, February 23, 1904, 2261; Graham, The “Interests of Civilization”?, 96. 97. Evening Star, January 18, 1904; TR to Spooner, January 20, 1904, Letters 3: 700–​ 701; Spooner to TR, January 23, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 41; Hay to Spooner, January 19 and 20 and Hay to Cullom, January 20, 1904, Hay Papers, reel 2. 98. Roosevelt, The Autobiography of Theodore Roosevelt, 553. At the same time, the quotation that is widely attributed to Roosevelt after he left office—​“I took the Canal Zone and let Congress debate,” see, for example, the New York Times, March 25, 1911—​was probably either a slip of the tongue or a misquote. See James F. Vivian, “The ‘Taking’ of the Panama Canal Zone: Myth and Reality,” Diplomatic History 4 (Winter 1980): 95–​100. 99. TR to Albert Shaw, January 30, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 333.

208

208

Notes to pages 77–81 C h a p t er   4

1. Undated clipping of a newspaper that quotes the Boston Transcript, in Von Holleben to von Bülow, April 29, 1902, IA R 17272; Durand to Lansdowne, February 26, 1904, FO 5 2549; Durand to Lansdowne, October 6 and 21, 1904, FO 5 2550. 2. For a similar conclusion, see Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 93; “Republican Party Platform of 1904,” June 21, 1904, http://​www.presidency.ucsb. edu/​ws/​?pid=29631; New-​York Tribune, April 28 and June 22, 1904. Lodge’s speech can be found in a clipping from the Boston Globe, August 7, 1904, Lodge Papers, reel 178. 3. TR to Joseph Cannon, September 12, 1904, Letters 4:  922–​924. For newspaper coverage, see, for instance, The Sun, September 12, 1904. 4. TR to John Hay, April 22, 1903, Letters 3:  465. See also Ricard, “The Roosevelt Corollary,” Presidential Studies Quarterly 36 (March 2006):  17–​26 and Ricard, “Monroe Revisited: The Roosevelt Doctrine, 1901–​1909,” in Marc Chenetier and Rob Kroes, eds., Impressions of a Gilded Age: The American Fin de Siecle, 237. 5. Historians have mostly neglected this fact. The best, if still cursory, analysis can be found in Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 321, 354, and 390–​391. See also Ninkovich, The United States and Imperialism, 120 and Mitchell, Dreams, 104–​107. 6. Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 408; TR to John Hay, March 13, 1903, Letters 3: 446; Perkins, The Great Rapprochement, 110–​111. For a similar conversation TR had with the British ambassador, see Herbert to Lord Lansdowne, March 26, 1903, FO 5 2522. 7. Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 408; Dexter Perkins, Hands Off:  A History of the Monroe Doctrine, 237–​238. 8. Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 392; J. Fred Rippy, “The Initiation of the Customs Receivership in the Dominican Republic,” Hispanic American Historical Review 17 (November 1937): 420–​437; TR to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., February 10, 1904, and Letters 4: 724n. 9. New-​York Tribune, April 3, 1903. 10. See articles in The Independent, the Review of Reviews, and Arena, all cited in Perkins, The Monroe Doctrine, 1867–​1907, 421–​423; TR to Root, May 20, 1904, Letters 4: 801. 11. The World, May 25–​27, 29, and 31, 1904; New York Times, June 6, 1904; The Sun, May 24, 1904; Evening Post, May 21 and June 7, 1904; The Nation, May 26, 1904; Springfield Republican, May 21, 1904. 12. The World, June 3, 1904; Evening Post, May 31, 1904. 13. See, for example, The Independent, May 26, 1904. The New  York Times ( June 3, 1904) attempted something of a straddle, supporting the essence of TR’s new policy but assuring readers that it held no “brief ” for the administration and criticizing the “form and tone” of TR’s letter. For one of the few voices of support, see a letter

209



Notes to pages 81–87

209

from Jacob Gould Schurman, president of Cornell University, to The World, May 27, 1904. 14. TR to Root, June 7 and to John Hay, September 2, 1904, Letters 4: 821–​822 and 917; FRUS 1905, 298–​312; Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 417–​418. 15. TR to Hay, September 2 and to Kermit Roosevelt, November 3, 1904, Letters 4: 917 and 1013–​1014; Lewis L.  Gould, Grand Old Party:  A History of the Republicans, 143–​152; Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 63. 16. Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine, 230–​ 231; George Herring, From Colony to Superpower:  U.S. Foreign Relations since 1776, 371; Lars Schoultz, Beneath the United States: A History of U.S. Policy toward Latin America, 184. 17. Hollingsworth, The Whirligig of Politics, 210–​234; Jules Witcover, Party of the People:  A History of the Democrats, 293–​295; Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 132–​135. 18. For the election as a referendum on TR, see Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 137. Parker’s letter of acceptance can be found in the New-​York Tribune, September 26, 1904. The Democratic Party Platform of 1904, July 6, 1904, can be found at http://​www.presidency.ucsb.edu/​ws/​?pid=29588. 19. New-​York Tribune and San Francisco Chronicle, November 9, 1904. 20. Chicago Tribune and Evening Post, November 9, 1904. 21. The Sun, The Constitution, and Springfield Republican, November 9, 1904. 22. Beveridge to Shaw, December 13, 1904, Beveridge Papers, box 282; Durand to Grey, January 22, 1906, FO 371 158. 23. Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 79; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 232. 24. Durand to Grey, January 22, 1906, FO 371 158. See also Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 231–​348. See Perkins, The Great Rapprochement, 224–​228, for the best analysis of Durand’s tenure in Washington, DC. 25. Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 79–​ 84 and 92–​ 105; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 235–​240 and 246–​247; Durand to Grey, March 23, 1906, FO 371 158. 26. TR, “The Puritan Spirit and the Regulation of Corporations,” August 20, 1907, Works 16: 80 and 84; Horrace Samuel Merrill and Marion Galbraith Merrill, The Republican Command, 1897–​1913, 248–​252; Bryce to Grey, November 28, 1907, FO 371 357. 27. Merrill and Merrill, The Republican Command, 1897–​1913, 193–​221; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 235–​252; Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 73–​105. 28. Blum, The Republican Roosevelt, 63. 29. William Holt, Treaties Defeated by the Senate:  A Study of the Struggle between President and Senate over the Conduct of Foreign Relations, 203–​209; Augustus Bacon, Congressional Record, 59th Congress, vol. 40, 2nd Session, January 15, 1906, 1071; New  York Times, April 8, 1906; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries, 66–​111. 30. TR to Taft, August 21, 1907, Letters 5: 761–​762; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 280–​281.

210

210

Notes to pages 87–90

31. Sternburg to von Bülow, August 6, 1906, IA R 17273. 32. TR, “Fourth Annual Message,” December 6, 1904, Works 15: 256–​258; New York Times, December 23, 1904. 33. Congressional Record, 58th Congress, 3rd Session, January 23 and 24, 1905, 1226–​ 1227, 1244, and 1281–​1288 and 59th Congress, 1st Session, January 23, 1906, 1426; New York Times, January 24, 1905; Shelby M. Cullom, Fifty Years of Public Service:  Personal Recollections of Shelby M.  Cullom, Senior United States Senator from Illinois, 387; Holt, Treaties Defeated by the Senate, 213–​217. 34. New York Times, January 26 and 31, 1905; FRUS 1905, 342–​343; Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 417–​421; Holt, Treaties Defeated by the Senate, 217–​218. 35. For anti-​imperialist and Democratic newspapers that criticized TR’s policy in the Northeast, see The World, December 7, 8, 24, 26, and 28, 1904, and February 17, 18, 24, 25, 27, and 28, 1905; Evening Post, December 23, 1904, and February 16, 17, 18, 21, and 25, 1905; The Nation, December 29, 1904, and February 23, 1905; Springfield Republican, February 18, 19, 20, and 23, 1905. For critical Democratic newspapers in the South see, for example, Courier-​Journal, February 18 and The Constitution, February 27, 1905. For Roosevelt’s complaint about the role that Democratic and southern newspapers played in the Senate’s failure to approve the Dominican agreement, see TR to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, March 23, 1905, Letters 4: 1143–​1145. 36. New-​York Tribune, December 25 and 27, 1904, and February 17, March 3, 6, 7, 9, 12, and 15, 1905; Chicago Tribune, December 27, 1904, February 17 and March 1 and 5, 1905; Washington Post, March 7 and 10, 1905; Evening Star, March 6, 8, 9, 14, and 15, 1905. 37. Evening Star, February 28 and March 9, 1905; Washington Post, March 7, 9, 10, and 11, 1905. 38. TR to John Coit Spooner, February 24, 1905, Letters 1: 1128; Shelby Cullom to TR, March 1, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 53; Washington Post, March 7, 1905; Evening Star, February 28, 1905. 39. “Message from the President of the United States,” FRUS 1905, 334–​342; TR to Shelby Cullom, March 1, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 337; Evening Star, March 6, 8, and 15, 1905; Washington Post, March 14, 1905. 40. Evening Star, March 1 and 9, 1905. 41. American Monthly Review of Reviews, March 1905; New-​York Tribune, March 3, 6, 7, 9, and 12, 1905; Chicago Tribune, March 1 and 5, 1905. 42. Evening Star, February 28 and March 6, 8, 9, 14, and 15, 1905. 43. TR to Hay, March 30, 1905, Letters 4: 1150; Minister Thomas Dawson to John Hay, March 27, 1905, FRUS 1905, 355–​359; Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 429–​ 431 and 453. 44. Durand to Grey, December 28, 1906, FO 371 357. 45. TR to George O.  Trevelyan, March 9 and to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, March 23, 1905, Letters 4: 1133–​1134 and 1143–​1145.

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Notes to pages 90–95

211

46. Tulis, The Rhetorical Presidency, 4, 19–​20, and 95–​116. 47. TR to John St. Loe Strachey, February 12, 1906, Letters 5: 149–​153; TR to George O.  Trevelyan, March 9 and to Joseph Bucklin Bishop, March 23, 1905, Letters 4: 1133–​1134 and 1143–​1145. 48. For the occupation of Cuba, see Collin, Theodore Roosevelt’s Caribbean, 530–​542. TR to William Bayard Hale, December 3, 1908, Letters 6: 1408. See also TR to Harry H. Johnston, December 4, 1908, Roosevelt Papers, reel 352.

C h a p t er   5 1. TR, “Thomas Hart Benton,” Works 7: 102–​103. 2. To avoid confusion, I  will use the modern English language rendering for the Chinese capital, Beijing, rather than the common practice of the time, which was to romanize it as Peking. 3. Delber McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 1900–​1906: Clashes over China Policy in the Roosevelt Era,  28–​29. 4. TR to George B. Cortelyou, January 25, 1904, Letters 3: 709–​710. See also McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 29, 52–​69, and 216–​217; Delber McKee, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905–​1906 Reconsidered: The Role of Chinese Americans,” Pacific Historical Review 55 (May 1986): 172–​174; Elmer Sandmeyer, The Anti-​Chinese Movement in California, 103–​104. 5. TR to Leslie M. Shaw, March 27, 1902, Letters 3: 249; “Message of the President to Congress,” FRUS 1901, xx–​xxi; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 52–​65; John Hay to TR, March 2 and circa March 19, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 42; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 214. 6. Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 255–​257; TR to George B. Cortelyou, January 25, 1904, Letters 3: 709–​710. 7. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 87–​102. 8. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 36. 9. McKee, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905–​1906 Reconsidered,” 166–​168. 10. This was long seen by historians as the main factor that sparked the boycott. See, for example, Alfred W. Griswold, The Far Eastern Policy of the United States, 124. 11. Shih-​shan Henry Ts’ai, “Reaction to Exclusion: The Boycott of 1905 and Chinese National Awakening,” Historian 34 (November 1976): 96. 12. McKee, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905–​1906 Reconsidered,” 174–​177; L.  Eve Armentrout, “Conflict and Contact between the Chinese and Indigenous Communities in San Francisco, 1900–​1911,” in Chinese Historical Society, The Life, Influence and the Role of the Chinese in the United States, 1776–​1960: Proceedings/​ Papers of the National Conference Held at the University of San Francisco, July 10, 11, 12, 1975,  63–​65. 13. TR to Metcalf, May 16, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 337.

21

212

Notes to pages 96–99

14. See, for instance, John Callan O’Laughlin to TR, undated letter sent in 1905, O’Laughlin Papers, box 3. See also McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 113. 15. Charles S. Campbell, Special Business Interests and the Open Door Policy, 25–​58; John Foord to TR, May 16, 1905, Journal of the American Asiatic Association, June 1905. See also a letter to TR from James B. Reynolds, which contained a similar warning and emphasized the need for Congress to act to curb the abuses by the Bureau of Immigration, May 16, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 54. 16. Journal of the American Asiatic Association, July 1905; Evening Star, June 13 and 24, 1905. See also a letter with a similar message to TR from the Portland Chamber of Commerce’s President, William D. Wheelwright in Evening Star, July 12, 1905. San Francisco Chronicle, June 9 and August 12, 1905. 17. Gould, Grand Old Party, 165–​170; Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 280; Henry Pringle, The Life and Times of William Howard Taft: A Biography 1: 237–​ 310; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 352–​357; Paolo Coletta, The Presidency of William Howard Taft, 1–​10; Evening Star, June 18 and 23, 1905; Taft to TR, June 25, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 55. 18. Paul A.  Varg, Missionaries, Chinese and Diplomats:  The American Protestant Missionary Movement in China, 1890–​1952, 31–​37, 52–​67, and 77–​85; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 48–​49 and 113–​115; The Missionary Review of the World, October 1905. 19. New-​York Tribune, June 16, 1905; Puck, July 12, 1905; Harper’s Weekly, August 12, November 4, 1905; Life, August 17, 1905; New-​York Tribune, June 27, 1905; The American Monthly Review of Reviews, August 1905; Chicago Tribune, June 27, 1905; Evening Post, June 5, 13, 16, 19, 20, 26, and 31, 1905; The Independent, June 29, August 17, October 26, November 9, 1905; The Outlook, July 1, 8, 22, August 26, 1905; The Springfield Republican, June 16 and 26, 1905; Wall Street Journal, June 14, 16, 30, August 9, 19, and 25, 1905; The World, June 17 and 27, 1905; The Constitution (Atlanta), October 23, 1905. 20. Armentrout, “Conflict and Contact between the Chinese and Indigenous Communities in San Francisco, 1900–​1911,” 62 and 69n; Corrine K.  Hoexter, “Dr.  Ng Poon Chew and the History of the Chinese in America,” in Chinese Historical Society, The Life, Influence and the Role of the Chinese in the United States, 1776–​1960, 98. 21. Hoexter, “Dr. Ng Poon Chew and the History of the Chinese in America,” 94–​95; San Francisco Chronicle, August 12, 1905; McKee, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905–​ 1906 Reconsidered,” 169 and 178–​179. 22. Prince of Ch’ing to Minister William Rockhill, July 1, 1905, M92, reel 128; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 133, 169–​170, and 175–​176; William Rockhill to Elihu Root, October 4, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 60.

213



Notes to pages 100–104

213

23. Barrett to TR, June 17, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 55; Evening Star, July 25, 1905; Elihu Root to Chentung Liang-​Cheng, November 7, 1905, Root Papers, letterbook 186, part 1; Harper’s Weekly, December 23, 1905. 24. See John Barrett’s analysis of California’s political landscape, in which he suggests naming a Californian to the cabinet, and mentions Metcalf, among others, as a possibility. Barrett to TR, April 30, 1902, Roosevelt Papers, reel 26; Evening Star, June 18, 1905; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 66–​67 and 93. 25. Metcalf to TR, June 7, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 55; Evening Star, June 13, 18, and 23, 1905. 26. San Francisco Chronicle, July 14 and June 27, 1905; San Francisco Examiner, June 17 and 28, 1905; Los Angeles Herald, June 17, 26, and 29, 1905; TR to Barrett, July 15, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 338. 27. Alexander Saxton, The Indispensable Enemy: Labor and the Anti-​Chinese Movement in California, 245–​246 and 256; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door, 142; Lloyd Hustvedt, “O.A. Tveitmoe: Labor Leader,” Norwegian-​American Studies 30 (1985): 3–​54; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 221; San Francisco Call, September 10, 1905. The members of Congress were Charles Wharton, of Illinois, and Edwin “Morrell,” probably Edwin Burleigh of Maine, both Republicans. 28. American Federation of Labor Papers, Executive Council Meeting, Wednesday, June 14, 1905, Executive Council Records, reel 2, 19; Evening Star, July 13, 1905; Julie Greene, Pure and Simple Politics:  The American Federation of Labor and Political Activism, 1881–​1917, 19–​87 and 107–​214 (see 138 for an explanation of nonpartisanship); Edward Kohn, “Theodore Roosevelt’s Early Political Career:  The Making of an Independent Republican and Urban Progressive,” in Ricard, A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt,  29–​30. 29. San Francisco Chronicle, July 6, 1905. 30. Metcalf to William Loeb, June 24, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 55; “Enforcement of the Chinese Exclusion Laws, General Instructions, Department of Commerce and Labor,” June 24, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 427; Letter from TR to All Diplomatic and Consular Officers of the United States in China, June 26, 1905, “Treatment of Chinese,” M77, reel 43. 31. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 115–​117; Consul Julius Lay to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis, May 26, 1905, M101, reel 19. 32. Minister William Rockhill to Secretary of State Elihu Root, July 25, 1905, M 92, reel 128; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 120; Lay to “The President of the Opposing Exclusion Treaty Society,” August 4, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 57. 33. Francis Loomis to Minister William Rockhill, August 25, 1905, M77, reel 43; Rockhill to Secretary of State, August 26, 1905, M 92, reel 129; Loomis to Rockhill, August 28, 1905, M77, reel 43. 34. James L. Rodgers to Francis Loomis, August 24, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; Commissioner H.  H. North to Commissioner General of Immigration Frank

214

214

Notes to pages 104–107

P.  Sargent, August 9, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; Quan Yick Nam to TR, August 3, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 57; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door, 130; McKee, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905–​1906 Reconsidered,” 177–​188. 35. Evening Star, August 31, 1905; Journal of American Asiatic Association, October 1905. 36. For positive reports released to the press see, for example, the Evening Star, September 4, 7, and 25, 1905. For Adee’s explanation, see his handwritten note on Lay to Secretary of State, August 16, 1905, M101, reel 19. 37. Addresses by Taft at the 81st Annual Commencement of Miami University, June 15, 1905, and at banquet organized by the commercial organizations of San Francisco, July 6, 1905, Taft Papers, reel 563. 38. Paul A. Varg, Open Door Diplomat: The Life of W.W. Rockhill, 1–​10 and 63–​65. See especially Rockhill to Root, November 6, 1905, M 92, reel 129; February 26, 1906, M 92, reel 130; Rockhill to Root, October 4, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 60. See also Rockhill to Secretary of State, October 3, 1905, M 92, reel 129; Rockhill to Root, September 18, 1905, M 92, reel 129. 39. Rockhill to Secretary of State, July 1 and July 14, 1905, M 92, reel 128; Lay to Loomis, August 9, 1905, M101, reel 19; Rockhill to Secretary of State, August 15, 1905, M 92, reel 129; Rockhill to Root, September 1, 1905, M 92, reel 129; Varg, Open Door Diplomat,  64–​65. 40. Journal of the American Asiatic Association, July 1905; Evening Star, July 13, 1905; American Federation of Labor Papers, Executive Council Records, reel 2, 19; TR to Sargent, August 19, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 338; Address by Taft at the 81st Annual Commencement of Miami University, June 15, 1905, Taft Papers, reel 563. 41. Most Chinese immigrants were from Canton, a factor that probably contributed to the strength of the movement there. 42. Rodgers to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis, July 27, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 57; Rodgers to Loomis, August 11, enclosed in Loomis to William Loeb, September 11, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; Lay to Loomis, July 22 and August 9, 1905, M101, reel 19. 43. Consul Henry Miller (Yokohama) to Loomis, reel 58, enclosed in Alvey A. Adee to William Loeb, September 21, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59; Consul Montgomery Schuyler (Bangkok) to Loomis, August 10, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; Evening Star, August 5, 1905; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 228. 44. Alvey Adee to Benjamin Barnes, August 4, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 57; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 122–​123; Lay to Loomis, August 9, 1905, M101, reel 19. 45. Rodgers to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis, August 11, 1905, enclosed in Loomis to TR, September 11, 1905, and Rodgers to Loomis, August 15, 1905, enclosed in Adee to TR, September 19, 1905, TR Papers, reel 58; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 121–​122. 46. Pierce to American Minister, Pekin [sic], July 7, 1905, M77, reel 43; Loomis to Rockhill, August 12, 1905, M77, reel 43.

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Notes to pages 108–112

215

47. Montgomery Schuyler to Francis Loomis, August 10, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; Shaw to TR, August 1, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 57; TR to Shaw, August 2, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 338. 48. Suggestion for a press release from Assistant Secretary of State Alvey Adee, August 15, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; San Francisco Chronicle, August 15, 1905. 49. Journal of the American Asiatic Association, September 1905; Missionary Review of the World, October 1905; Wall Street Journal, August 19, 1905. 50. Perkins to TR, August 30, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59. 51. TR to Perkins, August 31, 1905, Letters 4: 1327–​1328; Wheelwright to TR, August 31, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59; S. H. Piles and Levi Ankenny to TR, September 2, 1903, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59; Adee to Assistant Secretary of State Francis Loomis, “Telegram for the President,” September 2, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59. 52. Telephone conversation, Loomis to Loeb, September 1, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59. 53. TR to Taft, September 2, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 339; “Remarks of Secretary Taft at the banquet given by the Viceroy, through Mr. Wen, his Secretary, in Canton,” September 4, 1905, Taft Papers, reel 563; Taft to TR, telegram in cipher, September 6, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 59. 54. Rockhill to Root, September 1, 1905; Rockhill to Secretary of State, September 8, 1905, M92, reel 129; McKee, “The Chinese Boycott of 1905–​1906 Reconsidered,” 187; Lay to Secretary of State, September 30, 1905, and Lay to Loomis, September 28, 1905, M101, reel 19; Lay to Secretary of State, September 12, 1905, and Lay to Loomis, September 12, 1905, M101, reel 19. 55. Rockhill to Root, September 18, 1905, M 92, reel 129; Rockhill to Root, October 4, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 60; Rockhill to Secretary of State, October 3, 1905, M92, reel 129; Rockhill to Root, November 6, 1905, M92, reel 129. 56. Root to Rockhill, October 2, 1905, M77, reel 43; handwritten note signed “RB,” probably Assistant Secretary of State Robert Bacon, affixed to Rockhill to Root, December 5, 1905, M92, reel 130; Loomis to Acting Secretary for the President Benjamin F. Barnes, August 26, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58. 57. Root to American Legation Peking, October 30, 1905, M77, reel 43 and Root to Rockhill, November 5, 1905, M92, reel 129; Root to E. H. Harriman, November 27, 1905, Root Papers, letterbook 186, part 1. 58. Benjamin Barnes to Alvey Adee, August 14, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 58; TR to Rockhill, August 22, 1905, Letters 4:  1310; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 200–​211. 59. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 195–​196; TR to Rockhill, Letters 4: 1310; TR to President Edmund J. James, March 3, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 340. 60. Evening Star, October 30; November 3 and 4, and December 18, 1905; Root to Rockhill, November 16, 1905, M77, reel 43; San Francisco Chronicle, November 1 and December 19 and 20, 1905; The Independent, November 9, 1905.

216

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Notes to pages 112–115

61. Root to American Legation, Peking, November 3, 1905, M77, reel 43; Rockhill to Secretary of State, November 4, 1905, M 92, reel 129. 62. The New York Times, for example, printed editorials on November 5 and 6 that addressed the massacre, but framed the issue as one of growing antiforeigner sentiment and a direct result of the harsh enforcement of exclusion laws. The Times explicitly rejected any connection between the attack and the boycott movement. 63. See, for example, New York Times, November 6, 1905; The Independent, November 9, 1905; San Francisco Chronicle, November 2 and 3, 1905; Evening Star, November 3, 4, 7, 8, and 9, 1905; Washington Post, November 2, 1905. 64. Rockhill to Secretary of State, November 5 and November 6, 1905, M92, reel 129 and Root to Rockhill, November 25, 1905, M77, reel 43. 65. Root to Butler, December 24, 1906, Root Papers, letterbook 187, part 2. 66. Theodore Roosevelt, “The Awakening of China,” The Outlook, November 28, 1908, in Works 16: 283–​287; TR to Rockhill, May 18, 1905, Letters 4: 1184. 67. Evening Star, November 3 and 7, 1906; Rockhill to Root, November 3 and 7, 1905, M92, reel 129. 68. Rockhill to Root, November 6, 1905, M92, reel 129; Evening Star, March 6, 1906. 69. TR to Secretary of the Navy Charles Bonaparte, November 15, 1905, Letters 5: 77 and Bonaparte Papers, box 126; Bonaparte to TR, November 15, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 61; Root to Rockhill, November 16, 1905, M77, reel 43. For a similar interpretation, see McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 10. Other historians have argued that TR’s thinking about race—​specifically that the “backward” Chinese could not be dealt with as equals—​was the predominant factor. See especially Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 248–​249, and Michael Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship: The United States and China to 1914, 244–​245. While race played a secondary role in the president’s thinking in terms of his readiness to adopt a tough diplomatic tone in discussions with Beijing, there is little evidence that TR contemplated using military force more quickly than he had regarding Germany a few years earlier or would the following year vis-​à-​vis  Japan. 70. TR to Root, November 16, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 339; General Leonard Wood to TR, February 15, 1906, and Wood to Major General H. C. Corbin, February 20, 1906, Wood Papers, box 37; Challener, Admirals, Generals and American Foreign Policy, 1898–​1914, 215–​218. 71. Taft to Governor-​General H. C. Ide, March 17, 1906, Taft Papers, reel 467. 72. TR to Friedlander, November 23, 1905, Letters 5: 90–​91. 73. Journal of the American Asiatic Association, July 1905; TR to Perkins, August 31, 1905, Letters 4: 1327–​1328; TR to Friedlander, November 23, Letters 5: 90–​91; San Francisco Chronicle, December 21, 1905.

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Notes to pages 116–118

217

74. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 140; Journal of the American Asiatic Association, November 1905; FRUS 1905, xlix; Washington Post, January 20, 1906; New York Times, January 23 and February 8, 1906. 75. Congressional Record, January 24, 1906, 1520; Journal of the American Asiatic Association, January and February 1906; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door, 172. 76. See, for instance, Hermann Speck von Sternburg to the Auswärtiges Amt, January 12, 1906, IA R 17404. 77. “Address of President Roosevelt to the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor and the representatives of labor associated with them, at the Executive Office,” March 21, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428. 78. Gompers to the Executive Council of the American Federation of Labor, February 13, 1906, in Stuart B. Kaufman et al., eds., The Samuel Gompers Papers 6: 527–​529; American Federationist, November and December 1905, February and March 1906; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 182–​183. 79. President of the American Asiatic Association, Silas D.  Webb’s remarks at the Association’s annual meeting in New York, October 19, in Journal of the American Asiatic Association, November 1905; Congressional Record, 59th Congress, vol. 40, 2nd Session, January 25, 1906, 1528 and 1676; San Francisco Chronicle, December 19, 1905; Evening Star, December 22, 1905. 80. See the New-​York Tribune, December 6, 1905, January 18 and February 24, 1906; Evening Post, December 5, 1905, and January 3, 1906; Harper’s Weekly, November 4, 1905, and February 24, 1906; The Independent, November 9, 1905, and February 15, 1906; Wall Street Journal, January 25 and February 15, 1906; The World, February 4, 1906; New York Times, November 5 and 6, 1905, and January 23 and February 8, 1906; Missionary Review of the World, November and December 1905 and April 1906. 81. Oscar Straus to TR, December 13, 1905, Roosevelt Papers, reel 61; American Federationist, February, 1906; Hoexter, “Dr. Ng Poon Chew and the History of the Chinese in America,” 98–​101. 82. McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 178–​179; Hunt, The Making of a Special Relationship, 246–​249. 83. Chicago Tribune, December 23, 1905. 84. Evening Post, February 9, 1906; Evening Star, February 10, 12, and 13, 1906; New York Times, February 13, 1906. 85. Root to Rockhill, February 26 and March 12, 1906, M77, reel 43; Rockhill to Root, February 22, 24, and 26, M92, reel 130; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door Policy, 188–​190; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 245; Lay to Bacon, March 5, 1906, M101, reel 19. 86. TR to Senator Francis Warren, February 16, to Wade McClarin, February 19, to General J. Franklin Bell, February 22, and to Sloan Simpson, February 26, 1906,

218

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Notes to pages 118–123

all in Roosevelt Papers, reel 340; TR to Wood, April 2, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 341. 87. Evening Star, February 13, 1906; Evening Post, February 14, 1906. See also the New  York Times, February 15, 1906, for an endorsement of the administration’s decision. 88. The Independent, February 15, 1906. 89. New-​York Tribune, January 20 and February 17, 1906; New York Times, February 15, 1906. 90. TR, “The Awakening of China,” Works 16: 286; McKee, Chinese Exclusion versus the Open Door, 209–​214. C h a p t er   6 1. TR to Lodge, June 5, 1905, Letters 4:  1202–​1206; Roger Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice: The Anti-​Japanese Movement in California and the Struggle for Japanese Exclusion, 1 and 16–​30; O. A. Tveitmoe to John Hay, March 7, 1905, RG 59, M179, reel 1241; Japanese Immigration, Occupations, Wages, Etc.:  Compiled from U.  S. Government Reports and Reports of California Bureau of Labor Statistics, a pamphlet published by the Japanese and Korean Exclusion League on January 1, 1907; Raymond A.  Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 129–​130; Charles E.  Neu, An Uncertain Friendship:  Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 1906–​1909, 25–​26; San Francisco Chronicle, throughout 1905 and 1906. Tveitmoe edited Organized Labor, the “Official Organ of the State and Local Building Trades of California.” 2. TR to Lodge, June 5, 1905, Letters 4: 1205–​1206; Martin Meadows, “Eugene Hale and the American Navy,” American Neptune 22 ( July 1962): 187–​193. 3. TR to George Kennan, May 6, 1905, Letters 4: 1168–​1170; FRUS 1905, xlvii–​xlviii. 4. Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 34–​37. On this point see also Marks, Velvet on Iron, 93 and Dyer, Theodore Roosevelt and the Idea of Race, 135–​139. 5. TR to George Kennan, May 6, 1905, Letters 4: 1168–​1170; TR to Spring Rice, June 16, 1905, Letters 4: 1233–​1234. See also TR to Lodge, June 5, 1905, Letters 4: 1202–​1206. 6. Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 32–​34; Thomas A. Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises: An Account of the International Complications Arising from the Race Problem on the Pacific Coast, 17–​24 and 46–​47; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 28–​29; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 135. 7. “A Paraphrase of the Instructions Received from the Imperial Government,” October 26, 1906, M862, Case file 1797, reel 189; Evening Star, October 25, 1906. 8. Evening Star, October 25, 1906. See the San Francisco Chronicle, October 23 and 27, 1906, for the quotes and December 5, 10, and 15, 1906; San Francisco Examiner, November 19, December 5, 12, 19, and 21, 1906, and February 19 and 20, 1907. The San Francisco Call supported the school board’s order. It did not directly address the exclusion issue, but ridiculed TR’s advocacy of naturalization for Japanese. See October 22 and December 5 and 6, 1906.

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Notes to pages 123–125

219

9. See, for example, American Federation of Labor Records, March 27 and August 23, 1907, Executive Council Records, reel 3; Excerpts from “Accounts of the 1907 Convention of the AFL in Norfolk,” November 18, 1907, Kaufman et  al., The Samuel Gompers Papers 7: 267–​268; American Federationist, February 1907. 10. San Francisco Chronicle, December 19 and 24, 1906; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 37–​45; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 26–​28; Walton Bean, Boss Ruef ’s San Francisco: The Story of the Union Labor Party, Big Business, and the Graft Prosecution, vii, 38, 81–​83, 182–​183, and 153–​163. 11. TR to Kermit Roosevelt, October 27, 1906, Letters 5: 476; TR to Kentaro Kaneko, January 1, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344. 12. Memo by U.S. Attorney Robert Devlin, October 26 and Secretary of Commerce and Labor Metcalf to TR, November 2, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 69; TR to Root, December 5, 1906, Letters 5: 521; New York Times, December 6, 1906; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 67 and 123; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship,  39–​41. 13. “Sixth Annual Message,” Works 15:  385–​388; Ambassador Luke Wright to the Secretary of State, October 21, 1906, M862, Case file 1797, reel 189; TR to Metcalf, November 27, 1906, Letters 5: 510–​511; TR to John St. Loe Strachey, December 21, 1906, Letters 5: 532–​533. 14. Elihu Root to Ambassador Wright, February 5, 1907, quoted in Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 63–​64. See also Wright to Root, February 9, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190; TR to White, June 15, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346. 15. Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 39; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 163; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 64–​65; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​ American Crises, 163–​164. 16. FRUS 1905, xlviii; TR to Lyman Abbot, January 3, 1907, Letters 5: 536–​537; TR to Abbot, January 9 and 18, 1907; TR to David Starr Jordan, January 9, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; John Hay to TR, March 2 and circa March 19, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 42; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 214. 17. TR to Lyman Abbot, January 3 and to Otis, January 8, 1907, Letters 5: 536–​537 and 541–​542; TR to Abbott, January 9 and 18 and to Jordan, January 9, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; Jordan to TR, January 3 and Abbott to TR, January 8, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 71. 18. Evening Post, December 4 and 5; Springfield Republican, December 5; New York Times, December 7; The Independent, December 6 and 13, 1906; Los Angeles Times, December 5; New York American, December 12; San Francisco Chronicle, December 5; Evening Star, December 4 and 5; New York Herald, December 6; The Outlook, December 29; The World, December 8, 1906. 19. Admiral George Dewey, President of the Navy General Board, to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Truman H. Newberry, October 29 and Newberry to TR, October 30, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 69; Harold Sprout and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power: 1776–​1918, 261–​264.

20

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Notes to pages 125–127

20. Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 263–​264; Richard W. Turk, The Ambiguous Relationship:  Theodore Roosevelt and Alfred Thayer Mahan, 58–​ 59; James R.  Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet:  The World Cruise of the American Battle Fleet, 1907–​1909, 5. For the international context, see Robert K.  Massie, Dreadnought:  Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War, 547–​711. 21. TR to Hale, October 27, 1906, Letters 5: 473–​475 and Hale to TR, October 31, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 69; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 96. See also TR to George Edmund Foss, Chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs (R-​ IL), December 19, 1906, Letters 5: 529; TR to Foss and to Hale, January 11, 1907, Letters 5: 545–​549; TR to Foss and to Robert G. Cousins (R-​IA), January 23, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; TR to Secretary of the Navy Metcalf, January 27, 1907, Letters 5: 572; TR to Kermit Roosevelt, February 4, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344. The debate can be followed in Congressional Record, 59th Congress, 2nd Session, 2597–​2605, 2774–​2776, 3047–​3069, and 3435–​3439. See also Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 264 and Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 97. 22. State Department to Wright, October 23, 1906, M862, Case file 1797, reel 189 (released to the press October 28, 1906); administration official quoted in the Evening Star, October 25, 1906; “Sixth Annual Message,” Works 15: 385–​388; TR to Lyman Abbott, January 3 and 18, 1907, Letters 5: 536–​537 and Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; TR to Harrison Gray Otis, January 8, 1907, Letters 5: 541–​542; Chicago Tribune, October 29, 1906. 23. State Department to Wright, October 23, 1906, M862, Case file 1797, reel 189 (released to the press October 28, 1906); Telegram from W. J. Washburn (president) and Frank Wiggins (secretary) of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce, to TR, February 5, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428. 24. Administration official quoted in the Evening Star, October 25, 1906; “Sixth Annual Message,” Works 15:  385–​388; December 12, 1906, speech given by Elihu Root in Philadelphia, New-​York Tribune, December 13 and San Francisco Chronicle, December 15, 1906. 25. Chicago Tribune, October 29, 1906. See also Elihu Root to Montgomery Schuyler, December 28, 1906, and January 9, 1907, Root Papers, Letterbook 187, part 2. 26. State Department to Wright, October 23, 1906, M862, Case file 1797, reel 189, released to the press October 28, 1906. See also an administration official quoted in the Evening Star, October 25, 1906; Telegram from W. J. Washburn and Frank Wiggins of the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce to TR, February 5, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; San Francisco Chronicle, February 27, 1907. 27. “Sixth Annual Message,” December 3, 1906, Works 15: 385–​388; for Root’s speech, see New-​York Tribune, December 13 and San Francisco Chronicle, December 15, 1906; for the Harvard speech, see San Francisco Chronicle, February 27, 1907. 28. TR to Otis, January 8, 1907, Letters 5: 541–​542. See also TR to Lyman Abbott of The Outlook, January 3, 9, and 18, 1907, Letters 5: 536–​537 and Roosevelt Papers, reel

21



Notes to pages 127–129

221

344; TR to David Starr Jordan, President of Stanford University, January 9, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; TR to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, president of the University of California, December 20, 1906, Letters 5: 530; TR to Andrew D. White, founder of Cornell University and diplomat, February 4, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; TR to William Sturgis Bigelow, a prominent expert on Japan, October 27, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 343; Secretary Root to George B. McLaughlin of the Security Bond Investment Company (Los Angeles), February 14, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 189. 29. TR to Kermit Roosevelt, February 4, 1904, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344; TR to White, February 4, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344. See also TR to Sir Edward Grey, December 18 and to John St. Loe Strachey, December 21, 1906; to Lyman Abbott, January 3, 1907; Letters 5: 528–​529, 532–​533, and 536–​537; to David Starr Jordan, January 9, to Kermit Roosevelt, February 4 and 9, to George Kennan, February 9, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 344. 30. TR to Edward Grey, December 18, 1906, Letters 5:  528–​529; to Henry Cabot Lodge, October 27, 1906, Roosevelt Papers, reel 343; to John St. Loe Strachey, December 21, 1906, and to the Governor of California, James N. Gillett, March 11, 1907, Letters 5: 532–​533 and 610–​614; Gompers to Tveitmoe, December 21, 1906, Kaufman et al., The Samuel Gompers Papers 7: 147–​148; TR to Harrison Gray Otis, January 8, 1908, Letters 5: 541–​542. 31. San Francisco Examiner, February 1, 1907; New York American, February 1, 2, and 4, 1907; Evening Star, January 31, 1907; TR to John St. Loe Strachey, December 21, 1906, Letters 5: 532–​533. 32. Evening Star, December 1, 3–​5, and 6, 1906; New York Times, December 1, 2, and 4–​7, 1906; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 48–​71; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 164; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 163. 33. Ambassador Wright to Root, February 13 and Root to Wright, February 15, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190; TR to Governor James Gillett, March 9 and 11, 1907, Letters 5: 608–​610 and 610–​614 and Roosevelt Papers, reel 345; Executive Order, March 14, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; Evening Star, February 15, 16, 18, and 19 and March 9, 1907; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 66–​78; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 123–​192; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 154–​166. 34. Elihu Root to Ambassador Wright, May 25, Root to Governor James Gillett, May 25, Gillett to Root, May 27, Acting Secretary of State Huntington Wilson to Wright, May 29, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190; Consul Kazuo Matsubara to the Board of Police Commissioners, San Francisco, May 7 and 17 and July 1, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reels 73, 74, and 75; Chas. F. Skelly, Secretary of the Board of San Francisco Police Commissioners, to Matsubara, July 3, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 75; Ambassador Shuzo Aoki to Root, June 6, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 74; TR to Root, July 2, 1907, Letters 5: 699–​700; Memorandum prepared by Wilson, July 6, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 75; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 79,

2

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Notes to pages 129–132

86, 125–​126, 134, and 148; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 193–​210. 35. Wright to Root, June 12, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 30; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 168–​169; American Monthly Review of Reviews, July 1907 and Springfield Republican, July 4, 1907; Evening Post, July 6 and 8, 1907; Harper’s Weekly, June 22, 1907; Los Angeles Times, June 11, 1907; New-​York Tribune, July 3 and 11, 1907; Chicago Tribune, June 8 and July 16, 1907; The Outlook, June 22 and July 13 and 20, 1907; Springfield Republican, July 4 and 12, 1907; The Sun, June 11 and July 13, 1907; The World, June 14 and 20 and July 8, 1907. 36. New  York American, June 8 and 10, 1907, and San Francisco Examiner, June 10, 1907; New  York Herald, June 8, 10, 11, 15, and 18, 1907. See Akira Iriye’s Pacific Estrangement: Japanese and American Expansion, 1897–​1911, 151–​168, for the best account of the war scare. 37. Handwritten letter addressed to “Dear Mr. —​—​” and signed by “H.” dated June 11, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 74; General J. Franklin Bell to TR, July 18, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 75. 38. Tokyo Chamber of Commerce to Seattle, San Francisco, Boston, Washington D.C., New  York City, Philadelphia, Chicago, St. Louis, Cincinnati, Portland (ME), Tacoma, San Francisco, L.A. Chambers of Commerce, June 29, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190. 39. Friedlander to Root, July 12, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190; The Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco and the Boston Chamber of Commerce to Root, July 15 and September 4, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190; New York Times, August 29, 1907. 40. The Chamber of Commerce of San Francisco to the Japanese Association of America, July 12, 1907, and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce to the Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, July 30, 1907, reprinted in the Japan Times, August 22, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190. 41. William Loeb to Third Assistant Secretary of State Huntington Wilson, July 12, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 191; TR to Elihu Root, July 13, 1907, Letters 5: 717–​719. 42. July 6 memoranda prepared by Wilson, Roosevelt Papers, reel 75. For the view of Wilson as excessively anti-​Japanese and even unsuitable for the field of diplomacy, see Philip Jessup, Elihu Root 1: 457 and Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and the International Rivalries, 10. For TR’s response to Wilson’s memoranda, see Loeb to Wilson, July 12, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 191 and TR to Root, July 13, 1907, Letters 5: 717–​719. See also TR to Acting Secretary of Commerce and Labor Lawrence O. Murray, July 13 and to Root, July 13 and July 26, 1907, Letters 5: 717–​ 719 and 729–​730; draft reply to Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, August 1, 1907, initialed “HW,” M862, Case file 1797, reel 190. 43. American Monthly Review of Reviews, June 1907; Nicholas Murray Butler to Root, April 20, 1907; Senator William Boyd Allison to Root, April 23, 1907; and Edward

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Notes to pages 132–136

223

H. Butler, Editor of the Buffalo Evening News, to Root, April 25, 1907, all in Root Papers, box 49. 44. Jessup, Elihu Root 1:  448 and 2:  123. On Root’s skill as a corporate lawyer, see Richard W. Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition,  15–​19. 45. Root to TR, June 7, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 74; Root, “A Requisite for the Success of Popular Diplomacy,” Foreign Affairs 1 (September 15, 1922): 3–​10. 46. TR to Sternburg, July 16, 1907, Letters 5: 720–​721; TR to Carnegie, July 15, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346. 47. For the AFL’s commitment to limiting military expenditures, see Gompers’s address to the National Arbitration and Peace Congress in New York City, April 17, 1907, Kaufman et al., The Samuel Gompers Papers 7: 212. 48. TR to Henry White, June 15, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; TR to Hermann Speck von Sternburg, July 16, 1907, Letters 5: 720–​721. 49. American Monthly Review of Reviews, June 1907. 50. Evening Star, June 12, 1907; Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1907; Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, July 13, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 75; press release marked “Press 7/​12/​07,” Roosevelt Papers, reel 428. 51. Evening Star, June 11, 1907. 52. New York Herald, July 2, 1907; Chicago Tribune, July 2, 1907; San Francisco Call, July 5, 1907; press release marked “Press 7/​4/​07,” Roosevelt Papers, reel 428. 53. Challener, Admirals, Generals, and American Foreign Policy, 1898–​1914, 33–​34, 227–​228, 232, 246–​247, and 253. 54. TR to Lodge, July 10, 1907, Letters 5: 709–​710; to Elihu Root, July 13 and 23; to Hermann Speck von Sternburg, July 15; to Truman Newberry, July 24 and August 10; to Melville Elijah Stone, July 26, 1907, Letters 5: 709–​710, 717–​719, 720–​721, 724–​726, 728, and 745. See also Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 112–​118; Challener, Admirals, Generals and American Foreign Policy, 1898–​1914, 248–​257; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 219–​225; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 182–​184; Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 328–​329; Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, x. 55. TR to Newberry, August 10, 1907, Letters 5: 745; TR to Newberry, August 17 and to James B. Connolly, August 17, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; Rear Admiral Willard H.  Brownson to TR, August 19, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 76; Rear Admiral William S.  Cowles to William Loeb, November 20, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 79; Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, 94–​95; Letters 5: 745n. 56. TR to Lawrence F.  Abbott, August 29, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346 and to Lodge, September 2, 1907, Letters 5: 779. TR also believed that the New York Times opposed the fleet cruise, but the Times’ position was ambiguous. It ran a few supportive editorials in July but also published a mildly critical article on August 25, 1907. See also Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 309–​312, and Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 107.

24

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Notes to pages 136–139

57. The Sun, September 3 and 29, 1907. See also The Sun, July 7, 10, and 13, August 29, September 8, 25, and 30, 1907; The World, July 6–​13 and 20, September 4, 9, 10, 13, 26, and 30, October 2 and 26, 1907; Harper’s Weekly, July 20 and October 12 and 19, 1907. 58. Springfield Republican, July 9. See also the Evening Post, July 5, 8, 13, 15, August 2 and 30, September 9 and 13, October 1, 1907; The Nation, July 11 and September 26, 1907; Springfield Republican, July 6, 7, and 12, September 14, October 3 and 26, 1907. 59. New  York Herald, July 12, 1907; Advocate of Peace, August and September 1907. Carnegie and TR corresponded throughout this period. Carnegie expressed nothing but praise for TR’s handling of the latest friction with Japan and said nothing about the fleet cruise. 60. Meadows, “Eugene Hale and the American Navy,” 189; TR to Hale, October 27, 1906, Letters 5: 473–​475; TR to George Edmund Foss and Hale, January 11, 1907, Letters 5: 545–​549; TR to Eugene Hale, February 8, 1907, Letters 5: 582–​583. 61. New York Herald, July 12, 1907; Hale to Assistant Secretary of the Navy Truman Newberry, July 27, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 75. 62. New  York Times, July 3, The Sun, July 7, and the Evening Post, July 8, 1907. The New  York Herald reported on June 19 and 20 that the Navy Board was considering sending battleships to the Pacific. See also Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 213. 63. San Francisco Call, July 5, 1907; press release, July 4, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; The Sun, July 7, 1907; New York Times, August 1, 1907; The World, July 18, 1907; TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, July 10, 1907, Letters 5: 709–​710. 64. Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 118; Reckner, Teddy Roosevelt’s Great White Fleet, 11. 65. New York Times, July 6, 1907. See Juergens, News from the White House, 50–​51, for a useful discussion of the problem with unauthorized leaks. 66. San Francisco Call, July 5, 1907; New York American, July 8, 1907. 67. Chicago Tribune, July 6.  See also July 8, 11, and 13, August 26 and 30, 1907; TR to Abbott, August 29, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; The Outlook, September 28, 1907; TR to Shaw, September 3, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; American Monthly Review of Reviews, October 1907; Wall Street Journal, July 11, 1907; New-​ York Tribune, July 6, 1907. 68. TR to Herbert Satterlee, July 6 and to Colonel Robert M. Thompson, August 2 and 21, September 12, and November 8, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reels 346 and 347; Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 258–​259. 69. Press release dated August 23, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428. 70. TR to Bourne, August 13, to Hayes, September 19, and to Wiley, September 6, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346. 71. TR to Melvin Elijah Stone, July 26 and to Root, July 31, 1907, Letters 5: 728 and 738; TR to Root, July 13, and to Charles Bonaparte, July 13, 1907, Letters 5: 716–​719. See also TR to Speck von Sternburg, July 15, 1907, Letters 5: 720–​721; to Andrew

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225

Carnegie, July 15, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; to General Bell, July 23, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; to Whitelaw Reid, July 26, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; to Truman Newberry, July 30, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 346; to Root, July 31, 1907, Letters 5: 738; to Taft, August 3, 1907, Letters 5: 742–​743. 72. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, September 2, 1907, Letters 5: 779; Durand to Grey, April 6, 1906, FO 371 158. 73. Jonathan Bourne to TR, September 4, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 76; San Francisco Chronicle, July 8 and Los Angeles Herald, July 6, 1907. See also the Chronicle, July 5, 6, and 10, 1907; Los Angeles Times, July 12, 1907; San Francisco Examiner, October 2, 1907; San Francisco Call, July 9, 1907. 74. The Constitution (Atlanta) July 9, 1907. See also the Post Express (Rochester, NY), July 3, St. Louis Globe-​Democrat, July 7, St. Louis Republic, July 8, 1907, all found in Roosevelt Papers, reel 475; New York American September 26, 1907; The Sun, October 26, 1907; TR to Lodge, September 2, 1907, Letters 5: 779; Evening Star, October 25, 1907. 75. New York Times, 3, 1907; TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, July 10, 1907, Letters 5: 709–​ 710; Wright to Root, July 10 and Chargé d’Affaires H.  Percival Dodge to Root, August 30 and September 18, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 190. 76. William Loeb to John Callan O’Laughlin, August 26, 1907, O’Laughlin Papers, box 2. For appreciation among Japanese officials of the role played by O’Laughlin, see Ambassador Aoki to O’Laughlin, December 9, 1907, O’Laughlin Papers, box 1. 77. Dodge to Root, October 11 and Thomas J.  O’Brien to Root, October 25, 1907, M862, Case file 1797, reel 191. See also Wright to Root, July 10, 1907; Dodge to Root, August 30, 1907; Dodge to Root, September 18, 1907; and handwritten note by Wilson, October 19, 1907, all in M862, Case file 1797, reel 190. 78. TR to Edward Grey, February 28, 1907, Letters 5: 601; “Seventh Annual Message,” December 3, 1907, Works 15: 471–​474; TR to Secretary Metcalf, Letters 6: 967; TR to Joseph Cannon, February 29 and March 23, 1908, Letters 6: 956 and 980–​981. 79. For opposition from peace advocates, see Andrew Carnegie to TR, November 18, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 347; a petition signed by hundreds, with Carnegie’s name first, introduced on April 14, 1908, by Rep. James A.  Tawney (R-​MN), Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 4743–​4744; a memorial from the Peace Association of Friends of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, introduced by Senator Hale on March 17, 1908, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 3421; a petition from the Association of Friends, Philadelphia, introduced by John Sharp Williams, March 24, 1908, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 3822; The World, April 20, 1908; and Advocate of Peace, January and March, 1908. For the opposition of clergymen, see a letter, signed mainly by prominent clergymen from New York and nearby areas, entered into the Congressional Record by Senator Hale, on January 29, 1908, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 1265–​1266; a petition, introduced by Hale on February 24, 1908, signed by clergymen from New York

26

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Notes to pages 141–142

City, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 2360–​2362; and The Advocate of Peace, March 1908, noted similar petitions from clergymen in Boston, Providence, Fall River, Columbus, Minneapolis, Baltimore, and Indianapolis. For opposition from educators, see a petition from teachers and university faculty members in New York City, introduced to the House by John Sharp Williams on February 29, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 2717–​2719. See a similar petition introduced by Senator Hale on March 6, 1908, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 2952–​2953. For opposition from businessmen, see the Advocate of Peace, which in its March 1908 edition, noted a “business men’s remonstrance” from the Boston area; criticism from the National Association of Manufacturers, the Commercial and Financial Chronicle, and Banker’s Magazine can be found in Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 268. For anti-​imperialist/​mugwump opposition, see the Evening Post, April 13, 15, 18, 20, and 28, 1908; Springfield Republican, April 13, 15, 16, 18, and 26, 1908; and The Nation, April 16 and 23, 1908. For opposition from organized labor, see Samuel Gompers’s address to the National Arbitration and Peace Congress in New York City, April 17, 1907, Kaufman et al., The Samuel Gompers Papers 7: 212. 80. Advocate of Peace, March 1908; Springfield Republican, April 15, 1908; Evening Post, April 15, 1908; The Constitution, April 24; and The World, April 20, 1908. 81. See speeches in the Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, by George E.  Foss (R-​IL), 4574–​4577; Richard Bartholdt (R-​MO), 4584–​4588; Theodore E. Burton (R-​OH), 4611–​4612; James A. Tawney (R-​MN), 4783–​4785; and John S. Williams (D-​MS), 4781–​4782. 82. TR to Cannon, February 29 and March 23, 1908, and footnotes, Letters 6: 956 and 980–​981; New  York Times, March 29, 1908; Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 5211–​5235; New York Times, April 24–​26 and 28, 1908. 83. Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 240–​242; TR to Secretary of the Navy Victor H. Metcalf, March 9 and to Albert L. Key, April 10, 1908, Letters 6: 967–​968 and 999–​1001. See also the note in Letters 6: 980. 84. “Seventh Annual Message,” December 3, 1907, Works 15: 410–​488; New York Times, February 1 and March 29, 1908; Pringle, Theodore Roosevelt, 290–​338; George E.  Mowry, The Era of Theodore Roosevelt:  1900–​1912, 219–​225; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 341–​344; Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 266–​267; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 236–​237. 85. New York Times, April 3, 1908. See speeches by Taft in 1908: to the Ohio Society of Philadelphia, January 14; the Tippecanoe Club of Cleveland, Ohio, January 29; the Lincoln Banquet at Grand Rapids, February 12; at Hartford, February 15; at Concord and Manchester, New Hampshire, February 18; at Nashua, New Hampshire, February 19; the Board of Trade, Lowell, Massachusetts, February 19; Millbury, Massachusetts, March 2; the Young Men’s Republican Club of Massachusetts, at Boston, March 3; the Chamber of Commerce of Trenton, March

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Notes to pages 142–144

227

23; the McKinley Club, Omaha, April 6; the Hopkins Theater, Louisville, April 10. All can be found in Taft Papers, reels 564 and 565. 86. Press release, April 2, 1908, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; New York Times, March 15 and April 3, 1908. 87. TR to Root, July 23, 1908, Letters 5: 724–​725; TR to Kermit Roosevelt, April 19, 1908, Letters 6: 1012–​1013. 88. TR to Cannon, February 21 and 29 and March 23, 1908, Letters 6: 950–​952, 956, and 980–​981. 89. New York Times, April 7 and 15, 1908; Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 4606–​4611, 5162–​5163, and 5168–​5169. 90. Evening Star, February 6, March 9, 10, and 24, and April 27, 1908; TR to Warren and to Lodge, April 18 and 22, 1908, Letters 6:  1011 and 1014. The reasons for Lodge’s lack of enthusiasm are unclear, but Roosevelt mentioned it in his letter. Evening Star, April 4; New York Times, April 23, 1908. 91. Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 5281 and 5291; New York Times, April 28, 1908; Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 267–​ 268; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 238–​245. 92. See, for example, Edward E. Higgins, president of Success Magazine, to TR, April 24, 1908, Roosevelt Papers, reel 82; resolution from the National Business League of America in favor of TR’s naval program, Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 5164. 93. Newspapers, responding to public fascination with the cruise, covered it in detail. Editorial comment was glowing. See the Los Angeles Herald, April 15, 1908; Los Angeles Times, April 14–​19, 1908; Organized Labor, May 2, 1908; San Francisco Chronicle, April 16 and 17, and May 1, 2, and 3, 1908; San Francisco Examiner, April 15 and 16, 1908; San Francisco Call, April 14, 15, and 16, 1908. Members of Congress from the West Coast also showed great interest in the fleet cruise (see, for instance, Evening Star, April 10, 1908), and probably not coincidentally, voted almost to a man in favor of TR’s naval program. 94. The New  York Evening Telegram conducted a survey that found that 126 out of 162 editors from around the country supported the president’s plan; see the Congressional Record, vol. 42, 60th Congress, 1st Session, 5161. Literary Digest also found that a large majority of the nation’s newspaper editors advocated the four-​ battleship program; see Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 268 and Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 245. 95. New York Herald, April 3, 11, 15, 17, and 23, 1908; Sprout and Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 268. 96. TR to Henry White, April 27, 1908, Letters 6: 1017–​1018. 97. TR to Root, October 23 and to Kentaro Kaneko, November 6, 1907, Roosevelt Papers, reel 347; FRUS 1908, 503–​505, 515–​523; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 249–​251; TR to Kogoro Takahira, July 8, 1908, and Root to TR, August 1, 1908, Roosevelt Papers, reels 350 and 84; Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 270.

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Notes to pages 145–147

98. FRUS 1908, 510–​512; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 266–​286; Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 266–​286; Root to Whitelaw Reid, September 3, 1908, quoted in Jessup, Elihu Root 2: 34. 99. Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese American Crises, 304–​309; Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 47; Evening Star, February 2 and 7, 1909; New  York Times, February 13, 1909; New  York Herald, February 7, 1909; Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese American Crises, 308–​309 and 314. 100. Evening Star, January 22 and February 7, 1909; New York Times, February 3, 1909; Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 48; San Francisco Examiner, January 20–​31, 1909. 101. New  York Herald, January 23, 1909; Daniels, The Politics of Prejudice, 48; Los Angeles Times, January 21 and 29, 1909; San Francisco Chronicle, January 21, 22, and 26 and February 3, 4, and 6, 1909. 102. The World, January 21; New-​York Tribune, January 17; and Evening Post, January 19, 1909. Among publications that supported TR’s intervention, see, for example, the New-​York Tribune, January 28, 1909; Chicago Tribune, January 26, 1909; The Outlook, January 30, 1909; Wall Street Journal, January 21, 1909; and The World, February 4, 1909. Those that opposed the legislation but also criticized him included the Evening Post, January 19 and 21 and February 9, 1909; the Springfield Republican February 4 and 9, 1909; and The Sun, January 26 and February 3, 1909. 103. TR to Kent, January 22, 1909, Letters 6: 1478–​1479. Bailey, Theodore Roosevelt and the Japanese-​American Crises, 306–​307 and 311–​314, argues that TR overreacted. Neu, An Uncertain Friendship, 303–​305, and Esthus, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan, 289, contend that TR’s actions were justified given the potential long-​term damage to U.S.-​Japanese relations. 104. Speech given by TR to the Great Methodist Church, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; New York Times, January 13, 19, 21, and 22 and February 1, 3, and 7–​9, 1909; Andrew Carnegie to TR, January 21, 1909, Roosevelt Papers, reel 87; TR to Andrew Carnegie, January 22, 1909, Letters 6: 1479. 105. Evening Star, January 21–​24, and 26 and February 2, 3, and 6, 1909; New York Times, January 22 and 28 and February 4, 1909; New  York Herald, February 7, 1909; TR to Gillet, January 16 and 26 and February 4 and 6, 1909, Letters 6: 1477–​ 1478, 1483–​1486, 1502, and 1505. 106. TR to James Gillett, January 16, 1909, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; TR to Gillet, January 16, 1909, Letters 6:  1477–​1478; speech given by TR to the Great Methodist Church, Roosevelt Papers, reel 428; TR to Gillett, January 26, 1909, Letters 6: 1483–​1486; TR to William Kent, February 4, 1909, Letters 6: 1153–​1154; TR to Speaker Philip A. Stanton, February 8, 1909, Letters 6: 1510–​1511; New York Times, January 13, 14, and 21 and February 3 and 7–​9, 1909; New York Herald, February 7 and 8, 1909. 107. TR to Gillett, January 26, 1909, Letters 6: 1483–​1486; Evening Star, January 26, 1909; New York Times, February 1, 1909. In the end, the bill was easily defeated. See the New York Times, February 4, 1909.

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Notes to pages 147–154

229

108. TR to Knox, February 8, 1909, Letters 6: 1510–​1514. 109. Gillette to TR, February 17, 1909, Roosevelt Papers, reel 88; TR to Gillett, February 6, 1909, Letters 6: 1505; New York Times, February 5–​8 and 11, 1909; TR to Stanton, February 6 and 8, 1909, Letters 6: 1505–​1506 and 1509–​1510. 110. TR to Knox, February 8, 1909, Letters 6: 1510–​1514; TR to Taft, March 3, 1909, Letters 6: 1543. 111. TR to Philander Chase Knox, February 8, 1909, Letters 6: 1510–​1514. 112. TR to Taft, March 3, 1909, Letters 6: 1543. 113. TR to Ross, September 19, 1907, Letters 5: 794–​795. C h a p t er   7 1. TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, March 10, 1909, and to Frederic Remington, October 28, 1908, Letters 7: 2 and 6: 1321–​1322; Patricia O’Toole, “Roosevelt in Africa,” in Ricard, A Companion to Theodore Roosevelt, 435–​451; Patricia O’Toole, When Trumpets Call:  Theodore Roosevelt after the White House, 13–​22; Serge Ricard, “A Hero’s Welcome: Theodore Roosevelt’s Triumphal Tour of Europe in 1910,” Krabbendam and Thompson, America’s Transatlantic Turn, 143–​158. 2. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 381–​392; TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, March 4, 1910, Letters 7:  52; TR, “The New Nationalism,” Works 17:  5–​22; George Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 31–​146. 3. The fallout from the administration’s suit against U.S. Steel was another reason for TR’s break with Taft. See Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 399–​402 and Pringle, Taft 2: 736–​753. 4. TR to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., December 26, 1911, Letters 7:  469; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 404–​436; Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 237–​255. 5. TR to William Dudley Foulke, July 1, 1912, Letters 7: 568. 6. TR to Edward Casper Stokes, June 27, 1912, to John Foster Bass July 2, 1912, and to John C. Kelly, July 10, 1912, Letters 7: 565, 569, and 575. 7. New-​York Tribune, August 19, 1914; Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 101–​104. 8. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 467–​468; Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 310–​311; TR, “The Foreign Policy of the United States” and “The World War: Its Tragedies and Its Lessons,” The Outlook, August 22 and September 23, 1914. 9. TR to Albert Apponyi, September 17, 1914, Letters 8:  820; TR to Arthur Lee, September 4, 2014, Letters 8: 817–​818; TR to Arthur Lee, August 1 and 22, 1914, Letters 7: 790 and 810. 10. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 468–​469. 11. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 299. In fact, the health problems from this trip never fully abated and probably contributed to his death in 1919. See Candice Millard, The River of Doubt: Theodore Roosevelt’s Darkest Journey.

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Notes to pages 154–158

12. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, December 8, 1914, Letters 8: 862–​863; TR to Arthur Lee, August 22, 1914, Letters 7: 810. 13. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 299–​ 305; TR to Raymond Robins, August 12, 1914, Letters 7: 801. 14. TR to William Allen White, November 7, 1914, Letters 8: 834–​840. 15. TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, October 3, 1914, Letters 8: 821–​822; TR to Edward Grey, January 22, 1915, Letters 8: 876–​881. 16. Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 83–​87. Lodge and some other Republicans agreed. See Lodge to TR, December 7, 1914, and January 5, 1915, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 6. 17. TR to William Joel Stone, July 11, 1914, Letters 7: 777–​779. The treaty was ratified (minus the expression of regret) only during the Harding administration. See Schoultz, Beneath the United States, 257. 18. Lodge to TR, February 19 and June 25, 1915, reel 6 and February 13, 1917, reel 7, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence. 19. See Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 291, for TR’s inability to adjust to life after the presidency. See Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 110–​111 and Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire, xiii, for the argument that the presidency imposed discipline on TR and suppressed some of his less admirable tendencies. For TR’s often inexcusable rhetoric about Wilson, see Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 283–​287; Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 314–​315; and Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 473–​483. For the argument that TR may have been mentally or emotionally unbalanced after 1909 see Cooper, “If TR Had Gone Down with the Titanic: A Look at His Last Decade,” in Natalie A.  Naylor, Douglas Brinkley, and John Allen Gable, eds., Theodore Roosevelt: Many-​Sided American, 510 and 514. The historian in question is Howard K. Beale, who, according to Cooper, never put these speculations on paper but frequently voiced them. 20. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, September 9, 1913, and December 8, 1914, Letters 7: 747 and 8: 862–​863; TR to Frederick Scott Oliver, July 22, 1915, Letters 8: 949–​958. 21. TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, September 9, 1913, and to Arthur Lee, August 1, 1914, Letters 7: 747 and 790; TR to Rudyard Kipling, November 4 and to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, November 11, 1914, and to Arthur Lee, September 2, 1915, Letters 8: 829–​831, 840–​841, and 966–​971. 22. Osgood, Ideals and Self-​Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, 144–​145, and Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 286, have both cited Nietzsche’s famous dichotomy of the Warrior and the Priest in describing the differences between the two men though, as Osgood admits, the comparison is imperfect. On their differing leadership styles, see Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 101; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 172–​174; and Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 9, 29, 177–​178, and 309. 23. TR to Lodge, February 4, 1916, Letters 8: 1011–​1014.

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Notes to pages 158–162

231

24. TR to John St. Loe Strachey, February 22, 1915, Letters 8:  897–​903; Arthur S. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 161–​170; TR to William Allen White, November 7, 1914, Letters 8: 834–​840; TR to Arthur Lee, August 1, 1914, Letters 7: 790. 25. TR to William Allen White, August 3, 1917, Letters 8: 1216–​1217. 26. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 466–​471. 27. TR to Arthur Lee, August 22, 1914, Letters 7: 810 and to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, October 3, 1914, Letters 8: 821–​822; TR, Works 18: 1–​185; Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 471–​474; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 277–​278; Osgood, Ideals and Self-​Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, 135–​153; Walter LaFeber, The Clash: U.S.-​Japanese Relations throughout History, 99–​127; TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, June 17, 1915, Letters 8: 939. 28. TR to Frederick Scott Oliver, July 22, 1915, Letters 8:  949–​958; TR to Meyer Lissner, November 16, 1914, Letters 8: 845; to Arthur Hamilton Lee, June 17, 1915, Letters 8: 935–​941; to Raymond Robins, June 3, 1915, Letters 8: 927–​935; to John St. Loe Strachey, February 22, 1915, Letters 8: 897–​903. 29. TR to William Franklin Knox, December 21, 1915, Letters 8: 997–​998. 30. TR, “The International Posse Comitatus,” New York Times, November 8, 1914. 31. TR, New York Times, November 15, 1914; TR to Hugo Münsterberg, October 3, 1914, Letters 8: 822–​825. 32. TR, New York Times, October 11, 1914; Hawley, Theodore Roosevelt, 242–​248. 33. TR, New York Times, October 11 and 18, 1914; TR, “International Peace,” Works 18: 414–​415; TR “Utopia or Hell,” The Independent, January 4, 1915. 34. TR to James Bryce, March 31, Letters 8: 913–​914; New York Times, June 18, 1915; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 279 and 306–​307; Cooper, “If TR Had Gone Down with the Titanic,” 512–​513; David S. Patterson, Toward a Warless World: The Travail of the American Peace Movement, 1887–​1914. 35. For one of the first contemporary statements calling for a League of Nations, see Goldsworthy Lowes Dickinson, After the War. TR respected the aims of men such as Dickinson, but considered them to be counterproductive. They refused to recognize the need for military strength, which, he believed, was a prerequisite for genuine international peace. See TR to Professor Morris Jastrow, Junior, November 14 and Susan Dexter Dalton Cooley, December 2, 1914, Letters 8: 842 and 852–​855. 36. For a convincing case on the lack of support for preparedness at this stage, see Link, Wilson:  The Struggle for Neutrality, 140–​141. However, TR did receive support from people such as Henry Cabot Lodge. See Lodge to TR, December 7, 1914, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 6. 37. TR to Rudyard Kipling, November 4, 1914, Letters 8: 829–​831. 38. Osgood, Ideals and Self-​Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, 137. For examples of when TR called the country, or individuals, “yellow,” see TR to John Joseph

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Notes to pages 162–164

Pershing, June 6, 1916, Letters 8: 1051 and to William Allen White, January 1, 1917, Letters 8: 1135–​1137. 39. TR, “The International Posse Comitatus,” New  York Times, November 8, 1914; TR to Lodge, July 5, 195, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence; TR to William Allen White, January 1, 1917, Letters 8: 1135–​1139. 40. TR to Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt, May 19, 1915, Letters 8: 922–​923; TR to Kermit Roosevelt, August 28, 1915, Letters 8: 962–​964. See also TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, June 17, 1915, Letters 8: 935–​941; and TR to John Callan O’Laughlin, May 19, 1915, O’Laughlin Papers, box 11. 41. TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, August 6, 1915, Letters 8: 960; Lodge to TR, August 5, 1915, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 6. Lodge observed in the autumn of 1915 that “the one thing which in this part of the country meets with the utmost approval everywhere I speak . . . is the demand for preparedness.” See Lodge to TR, September 25, 1915, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 6. 42. Chicago Tribune, July 23 and 26 and August 7, 1915; The Constitution, December 8, 1915; Springfield Republican, December 9, 1915; “Democratic Party Platform of 1916,” June 14, 1916, http://​www.presidency.ucsb.edu/​ws/​?pid=29591; Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 590. 43. Robert D. Ward, “The Origin and Activities of the National Security League, 1914–​ 1919,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review 47 ( June 1960):  51–​65. The American Defense Society, a smaller and less influential splinter group, preached the same message but with an explicitly pro-​Republican slant. 44. Link, Wilson: The Struggle for Neutrality, 593. 45. Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 116–​117. 46. For Root’s speech, at the Republican State Convention in New York in Carnegie Hall, see the New-​York Tribune, February 16, 1916. See also Lewis L. Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power: Wilson Versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916, 58–​61; Jessup, Elihu Root 2: 322–​323; Leopold, Elihu Root and the Conservative Tradition, 107–​110. 47. Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 324–​344. 48. TR to Gifford Pinchot, February 8, 1916, Letters 8:  1016–​1017; TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, February 18, 1916, Letters 8:  1023; TR to George von Lengerke Meyer, March 29, 1916, Letters 8: 1024–​1026. Many progressives were also fiercely opposed to preparedness, another source of TR’s dissatisfaction with the party. See Mowry, Theodore Roosevelt and the Progressive Movement, 320–​321. 49. TR, “Introductory Note,” Works 18:  191; TR, “Preface to the Second Edition,” Works 18: 193–​195. 50. TR, Works 18: 454. 51. TR, Works 18: 454–​455. 52. Letters 8: 1037n. See also New-​York Tribune, May 12, 1916. On the composition of the Roosevelt Non-​Partisan League, see Corinne Roosevelt Robinson, My Brother Theodore Roosevelt, 292.

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Notes to pages 165–169

233

53. Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, December 2 and December 4, 1915, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 6; TR to Lodge, February 4, 1916, Letters 8: 1011–​1014. For the “iceberg” bon mot, see TR to William Austin Wordsworth, June 23, 1916, Letters 8: 1078. For concerns among GOP leaders about being seen to reward TR’s disloyalty, and the belief that TR would be a divisive candidate who would lose to Wilson, see Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power, 69–​70. It is also worth noting that Hughes and TR had had a somewhat strained relationship ever since Hughes’s governorship in New York, between 1907 and 1910, when TR considered Hughes insufficiently deferential. In addition, TR actively promoted Taft, and not the governor, as his successor, a decision that may have angered Hughes. See Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power,  45–​46. 54. For examples of this antiwar—​and at least at this stage—​moderately pro-​German message, see the New York American, August 3, 6, 8, 10, 13, 17, 20, 25, 26, and 31, 1914. Hearst would not support TR, even though both were progressives, because of the long-​standing enmity between the two men. See Ben Procter, William Randolph Hearst: Final Edition, 1911–​1951,  43–​47. 55. New-​Yorker Staats-​Zeitung, May 19 and November 7, 1916; Link, Wilson:  The Struggle for Neutrality, 161–​163. 56. TR to Hugo Münsterberg, November 2 and December 23, to Edmund Robert Otto von Mach, November 7, and to Bernhard Dernburg, December 4, 1914, Letters 8: 825–​827 and 868, 833–​834, and 857–​861. 57. TR to Rudyard Kipling, November 4, 1914, Letters 8:  829–​831; TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, November 11, 1914, Letters 8: 840–​841; TR to John St. Loe Strachey, February 22, 1915, Letters 8:  897–​903; TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, September 2, 1915, Letters 8: 966–​971; TR to Lodge, November 27, 1915, Letters 8: 991–​992. 58. On German propaganda in the United States see Klaus-​Jürgen Bremm, Propaganda im Ersten Weltkrieg, 93–​99. For an example involving a former political supporter of TR see TR to George Sylvester Viereck, March 15, 1915, Letters 8: 910–​911; TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, February 18, 1915, Letters 8: 892–​893. 59. See Phyllis Keller, States of Belonging: German-​American Intellectuals and the First World War, for a thoughtful exploration of the subject, especially 1, 116, 141–​144, 157–​159, and 230–​241. 60. TR, “When Is an American Not an American?” Works 18: 374 (originally printed in Metropolitan Magazine in April 1915). 61. TR, “International Duty and Hyphenated Americanism,” Works 18: 279. 62. Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt, 484; New-​York Tribune, September 28, 1917. 63. Harbaugh, Power and Responsibility, 417–​418 and 507–​508; Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt, 483; TR to Henry Cabot Lodge, February 20, 1917, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 7. For typical coverage of La Follette’s speech, see the New-​ York Tribune, September 22, 1917. TR’s comments can be seen in the New  York Times, September 25, 1917. For the Wilson administration’s record on wartime

234

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Notes to pages 169–175

dissent see Cooper, Woodrow Wilson, 397–​401, and Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 156–​157. 64. TR, “Americanism,” Works 18: 399. 65. TR to Frederick Wallingford Whitridge, April 6, 1915, Letters 8: 920–​921. 66. Charles W. Eliot, “How Should We Prepare?,” North American Review 202 (September 1915):  349–​353 and “The Horrible War,” Journal of Education 80 (October 22, 1914): 369–​370; Elting E. Morison, Turmoil and Tradition: A Study of the Life and Times of Henry L. Stimson, 62–​75, 224; David Kennedy, Over Here: The First World War and American Society, 31; Ward, “The Origin and Activities of the National Security League, 1914–​1919,” 53–​58; Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power, 96. 67. TR, “The Soul of a Nation,” Address at Cooper Union, November 3, 1916, Works 18: 442; TR, “America Needs Hughes,” The Outlook, October 25, 1916; Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power, 75–​84; TR to William R. Willcox, Letters 8: 1101; Milwaukee Journal, May 23, 1916. 68. Merlo J. Pusey, Charles Evans Hughes 1: 350–​355; “Republican Party Platform of 1916,” http://​www.presidency.ucsb.edu/​ws/​?pid=29634. For an analysis of the German vote, see the New York Times, November 9, 1916. For the allegations about the secret deal, see the New York Times, October 23, 1916, and Betty Glad, Charles Evans Hughes and the Illusions of Innocence: A Study in American Diplomacy, 81. On Hughes’s and TR’s weaknesses as candidates see Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power, 80–​87, 118–​119, and 128. 69. Arthur Link, Wilson the Diplomatist, 67–​77; Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 131–​135. 70. TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, November 19, 1918, Letters 8: 1396–​1399. 71. TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, January 22, 1915, Letters 8: 883–​884. 72. M. L. Sanders and Philip Taylor, British Propaganda during the First World War, 1914–​1918, 167–​207. 73. TR to Arthur Hamilton Lee, September 2, 1915, Letters 8: 966–​971. 74. TR to Cecil Arthur Spring Rice, January 22, 1915, Letters 8: 883–​884. 75. TR to Edward Grey, January 22 and to John St. Loe Strachey, February 22, 1915, Letters 8: 876–​881 and 897–​903. 76. TR to James Bryce, March 31, 1915, Letters 8: 913–​918. 77. TR to Benjamin Ide Wheeler, November 29, 1916, Letters 8:  1127–​1128; James R. Garfield to TR, March 5, 1917, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 7. See also Henry Cabot Lodge to TR, February 9, 1916, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 7 and Gould, The First Modern Clash over Federal Power, 128. 78. TR to Lodge, March 10, 1917, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 7; TR to William Allen White, January 1, 1917, and to White, December 2, 1916, Letters 8: 1135–​1137 and 1128–​1131. 79. New-​York Tribune, March 21, 1917; full text can be found at the Almanac of Theodore Roosevelt, http://​www.theodore-​roosevelt.com/​trspeechescomplete. html.

235



Notes to pages 175–179

235

80. TR to Rudyard Kipling, November 23, to the Members of the Newberry Volunteer Committee, September 13, to Selden Palmer Spence, October 15, and to the Massachusetts Republican State Committee, October 17, 1918, Letters 8:  1405, 1371–​1372, 1374–​1375, and 1377–​1379. 81. Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt, 445–​446, 476–​477, and 491; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 325–​326; TR to Secretary of War Newton D. Baker, May 8 and to Charles J. Bonaparte, May 25, 1917, Letters 8: 1187–​1191, 1194–​1197, and 1193n. 82. Dalton, Theodore Roosevelt, 476–​477; TR to William Allen White, February 17, 1917, Letters 8: 1153. 83. TR, “The Performance of a Great Public Duty,” July 3, 1918, and “Sound Nationalism and Sound Internationalism,” August 4, 1918, Roosevelt in the “Kansas City Star”:  Wartime Editorials, 172–​174 and 188–​196; TR, “Tell the Truth and Speed up the War,” Works 19: 281–​288; TR to Raymond Benjamin, September 12, 1918, Letters 8: 1371. 84. The New York American began printing hawkish headlines and editorials the day after Wilson’s request to Congress for a declaration of war and continued to do so for the remainder of the conflict. See, for instance, New York American, April 3, 4, and 6, 1917; TR, “Foreword,” in Charles Hanson Towne, ed., For France, x–​xi; Procter, William Randolph Hearst,  54–​55. 85. TR, Roosevelt in the “Kansas City Star”; TR to Edwin A. Van Valkenberg, April 23, 1918, Letters 8: 1312. 86. TR to Caspar Whitney, January 16, 1918, Letters 8: 1272–​1275. For Whitney’s articles, see, for instance, “America Fails Her Fighting Men in France,” New-​York Tribune, January 13, 1918. 87. TR to Frank Andrew Munsey, October 4, 1917, and to S. Stanwood Menken, June 26, 1918, 1242–​1244 and 1340–​1341. 88. TR to William Allen White, May 28, 1917, Letters 8: 1197–​1199. 89. TR to Kermit Roosevelt, February 2, to William Allen White, April 4, to Theodore Roosevelt Jr., November 10, and to Henry Cabot Lodge, December 6, 1918, Letters 8: 1278–​1279, 1305–​1307, 1390, and 1413. 90. Beveridge to TR, August 19 and October 5 and 19, 1918, Beveridge Papers, box 277; Lodge to TR, November 26, 1918, Lodge-​Roosevelt Correspondence, reel 7; Widenor, Lodge, 328–​340; Thompson, Woodrow Wilson, 234–​236. 91. TR to William H. Taft, July 25 and to Albert Beveridge, October 31, 1918, Letters 8: 1362 and 1385; Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 331. 92. Cooper, The Warrior and the Priest, 332. 93. To an extent, I would agree with scholars such as Greg Russell on this point. See, for instance, Russell, “Theodore Roosevelt, Geopolitics, and Cosmopolitan Ideals,” Review of International Studies 32 ( July 2006): 553. 94. Osgood, Ideals and Self-​Interest in America’s Foreign Relations,  95–​97. 95. See, for instance, TR to Susan Dexter Dalton Cooley, December 2, 1914, Letters 8: 852–​855.

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Notes to pages 181–185 C o n c lus i o n

1. Osgood, Ideals and Self-​Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, 75–​78. See also Beale, Theodore Roosevelt, 454–​462; Kissinger, Diplomacy,  38–​45. 2. Kissinger, Diplomacy, 44; Osgood, Ideals and Self-​Interest in America’s Foreign Relations, 145–​146. 3. Jeremi Suri, The Impossible Presidency: The Rise and Fall of America’s Highest Office, 124–​136; Immanuel Kant, Zum ewigen Frieden, 19. 4. Henry Cabot Lodge, “An Address Delivered before the Congress of the United States, Sunday, February 19, 1919,” Senate of the United States: And Other Essays and Addresses Historical and Literary, 154. 5. TR to William Franklin Knox, December 21, 1915, Letters 8: 997–​998; TR to Edwin A. Van Valkenberg, April 23, 1918, Letters 8: 1312. 6. Cooper, “If TR Had Gone Down with the Titanic,” 499; William Lee Miller, Arguing about Slavery: John Quincy Adams and the Great Battle in the United States Congress. 7. James Bryce, The American Commonwealth 1: 6. 8. James Ford Rhodes, The McKinley and Roosevelt Administrations, 1897–​1909, 279.

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25

253

Index

Page references followed by f indicate figures. Numbers followed by n indicate notes. Abbott, Lawrence F., 138, 204n54 Abbott, Lyman, 124–125, 138 Abemore, William, 108 Adams, Brooks, 24, 94 Adams, John Quincy, 183 Adamson Act, 170 Adee, Alvey, 105, 109, 201n12, 202n30 The Advocate of Peace, 136, 141, 225–226n79 AFL (American Federation of Labor), 101–102, 106, 116, 123 Alaskan border controversy, 7, 18, 31 Aldrich, Nelson W., 85–86, 142 Algeciras Conference, 87 American Asiatic Association, 96, 106, 108, 115–116, 118 American China Development Company, 111 American Defense Society, 232n43 American Federationist, 116 American Federation of Labor (AFL), 101–102, 106, 116, 123 Americanism, 9, 20, 158–174, 183 American Monthly Review of Reviews, 23, 55, 88, 129, 138, 204n54, 208n10

American Presbyterian missionaries, 111 Ananias Club, 15 Anglo-American relations, 30–32, 35–36 Ankenny, Levi, 109 Anti-Imperialist League, 139 anti-imperialists, 19, 27–30 newspapers, 6, 210n35, 226n79 opposition to TR, 4, 90–91 Aoki, Shuzo, 123–124, 134 Arena, 208n10 Asiatic Exclusion League (formerly the Japanese-Korean Exclusion League), 120–123, 145 Atlanta Journal, 152f Atlanta News, 65 backchannels, 140–141 Bacon, Augustus, 70 Bacon, Robert, 163 Baker, Ray Stannard, 14, 190n11 balance of power, 24, 87 Balfour, Arthur, 39, 46 Banker’s Magazine, 226n79 Barrett, John, 99–100, 105, 213n24

254

254

Index

Bartholdt, Richard, 33, 43, 198n35, 226n81 battleships: four-battleship program, 141–144, 227n94 Beale, Howard K., 188n5, 230n19 Beisner, Robert L., 191n23 Beveridge, Albert J., 67, 85, 143, 178–179 Bigelow, John, 75 Bishop, Joseph Bucklin, 14, 40, 44 Blaine, James G., 15, 18–19 Blum, John Morton, 86 Boer War, 30–31 Bonaparte, Charles, 139, 163 Borah, William E., 146 Boston Chamber of Commerce, 131 Boston Transcript, 56 Bourne, Jonathan, 138 Bowen, Herbert, 43 Boxer Rebellion, 95, 111 boycotts Chinese boycott of U.S. products, 8–9, 95–114, 211n10 of Japanese restaurants, 122–123 bribery, 13, 202n30 Britain Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 52 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 51–53 interventions in Latin America, 34–36 relations with U.S., 30–32, 171–174 British American Tobacco Company, 107 Bryan, William Jennings, 26, 82, 136, 155 Bryce, James, 86, 174, 184 bully pulpit, 13 Bunau-Varilla, Philippe, 58–59, 66, 74 Burleigh, Edwin, 213n27 Burroughs, John, 204n44 Burton, Theodore E., 226n81 businessmen, 4 Butler, Nicholas Murray, 61, 112 California anti-Japanese sentiment, 125–126, 145–147 offensiveness, 122

political landscape, 213n24 segregation of Japanese (along with Chinese and Korean) school children, 122–129, 145, 147, 184 The Call, 123 Canada: Alaskan border controversy, 7, 18, 31 Cannon, Joseph G. ( Joe), 63, 85–86, 136, 142–143 Canton, China, 214n41 Canton Christian College, 97 Canton-Hankow railroad, 111 capitalism, 184 Caribbean European interventions in, 35, 37, 135 U.S. intervention in, 24, 181–182 U.S. Navy in, 36, 59–60, 71–72, 197n18 Carnegie, Andrew, 136, 224n59, 225n79 Casey, Steven, 187n2 Castro, Cipriano, 37, 43 Chandler, William E., 205n60 Chentung Liang-Cheng, 99–100 Chicago Tribune, 45, 117, 206n80 coverage of fleet cruise, 137–138 coverage of presidential election of 1904, 84 support for Dillingham-Morales agreement, 88–89 support for preparedness and Americanism, 163 support for TR, 126, 204n54, 228n102 China boycott of U.S. products, 8–9, 95–114, 211n10 Canton-Hankow railroad, 111 nationalism, 94–95 relations with U.S., 8–9, 93–119 trademark protection, 144–145 violence against Americans, 111–113, 216n62 Chinese exclusion of, 93–103, 106, 115–117, 119, 216n69

25

Index immigration to the U.S., 87, 93–94, 214n41 segregation of school children, 122–129, 145, 147, 184 Chinese-Americans, 95, 98–99 Chinese Empire Reform Association, 104 Chinese Exclusion Act, 93–102, 106 Choate, Joseph, 170 Chung Sai Yat Po, 99 Churchman, 75, 115 citizenship: for Japanese people, 121, 124 Civil War, 20, 192n35 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 52 clergymen, 225–226n79 Cleveland, Grover, 13, 18, 23, 25–27, 82 Collin, Richard H., 194n67 Colombia, 65 and Panama Canal, 52–59 relations with U.S., 70–74 secession of Panama from, 57–63, 70–71, 73, 155, 201n12 sovereignty over Panama, 52–54 Colombians: TR’s view of, 56 Columbia College Law School, 10 Commercial Advertiser, 14, 40, 46 Commercial and Financial Chronicle, 226n79 Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama (New Panama Canal Company), 53–54, 58, 62, 69 Connolly, James, 135 The Constitution (of Atlanta) coverage of naval expansion, 141 coverage of Panama Canal project, 57, 64–65, 198n32, 203n42, 203n44, 206n80 coverage of presidential election of 1904, 84 coverage of Venezuelan crisis, 37 criticism of TR, 210n35 opposition to Dillingham-Morales agreement, 88 support for fleet cruise, 139–140

255

support for preparedness and Americanism, 163 Cooley, Susan Dexter Dalton, 235n95 Cooper, John Milton, 188n6, 190n9 “A Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine” (Root), 88 corruption, 12–13 Cortelyou, George, 17, 102 cosmopolitan ideals, 235n93 Coughlin, J. B., 71–72 Council on Foreign Relations, 164 Courier-Journal, 38, 88, 210n35 Craig, Campbell, 187n1 Creelman, James, 47 Cromwell, William Nelson, 58–59, 202n30 Cuba, 7, 24, 80, 91, 194n55, 211n48 Cull, Nicholas, 189n17 Cullom, Shelby, 38, 40, 42, 55, 70, 75, 77–78 cultural diplomacy, 189n17 Dallas Morning News, 64 Dalton, Kathleen, 192n35 Davis, Oscar King, 146 DeArmond, David, 38 DeConde, Alexander, 189n12 de Lesseps, Ferdinand, 52–53 demagoguery, 4, 16, 121, 125, 146, 168 Democratic newspapers, 22–23, 210n35 Democratic Party, 29–30, 153 opposition to TR, 4, 90–91, 180 platform, 163 presidential campaign of 1904, 82–83 support for, 102 TR’s dislike of, 22–23, 153–154, 175, 184 Deutscher Club, 49–50 Dewey, George, 39, 41, 48–49, 137, 142–143 de Young, M. H., 100 Dickinson Goldsworthy Lowes, 231n35 Dillingham-Morales agreement, 82, 87–89

256

256

Index

diplomacy cultural, 189n17 great power, 181, 185 public, 7, 32, 47, 172–174, 189n17 discrimination and racism, 56, 93, 121, 146, 202n17, 216n69 domestic politics, 4–5, 7–8 Dominican Republic unrest in, 80 U.S. intervention in, 77–92 Dooley, Mr. (fictional bartender), 16, 44–45 Dreadnought, 125 dreadnoughts, 143–144 Dubuque, J. Gabriel, 58–59 Dueck, Colin, 188n5 Dunne, Finley Peter, 16, 44–45 Dun’s Review, 204n55 Durand, Henry Mortimer, 77, 85, 89–90 Dutch-Americans, 30–31 East Asia, 23–24 Edmunds, George F., 20 Education Association of China, 97 Eliot, Charles W., 117, 170 elites, 4, 89–92, 93, 148, 170, 184, 191n20 Emporia Gazette, 178 Esthus, Raymond, 188n5 ethnic groups, 30 ethnic politics, 189n12 Europe, 23–24, 86–87. See also specific countries interventions in the Caribbean, 35, 37, 135 interventions in Latin America, 34–50 Venezuela blockade, 36–41, 44–46, 79–80 Evening Post, 14, 19, 23, 38, 138, 204n46 and anti-Japanese legislation, 146 coverage of fleet cruise, 136 criticism of TR, 61–63, 81, 118, 210n35, 226n79, 228n102

and naval expansion, 141 and Panama, 60–62 and Panama Canal, 55 and presidential election of 1904, 84 TR’s view of, 19, 67, 132–133 and U.S. foreign policy, 81 Evening Star, 39, 206n80 and Chinese boycott, 104 coverage of fleet cruise, 227n93 and Japanese relations, 134 and Panama Canal politics, 55 positive reports, 214n36 and Venezuelan crisis, 40 exclusion of Chinese, 93–103, 106, 115–117, 119, 216n69 of Japanese, 116, 123, 127–128, 130–132 of Koreans, 116 extremism, 9 fake news, 16, 112 fascism, 185 The Fatherland, 168 Fear God and Take Your Own Part (Roosevelt), 164 First Moroccan Crisis, 7 Flint, Frank P., 146 Foord, John, 96, 108 Foraker, Joseph, 42, 63, 70, 204n44 Foreign Affairs, 132 foreign policy: and public opinion, 7, 89–92, 147–149 For France, 177 The Forum, 25 Foss, George E., 142, 226n81 Foster bill, 116–117, 119 Fourteen Points speech (Wilson), 178–179 Foyle, Douglas C., 187n2, 189n9 Frederick the Great, 32–33 Friedlander, T. C., 114–115, 131 Furuseth, Andrew, 101

257

Index Gabaccia, Donna, 198n35 Gardener, John Endicott, 104 Garfield, James R., 174 Geary Act, 93 gemütlichkeit, 49 Gentlemen’s Agreement, 128–129, 145 geopolitics, 235n93 German-Americans, 30, 32–34, 43–44, 47–50, 79, 165–171, 185, 234n68 Germania, 43 Germany intervention in Venezuela, 34, 36, 44–45 propaganda, 47, 233n58 submarine warfare, 163 U.S. relations, 32–36, 47–50 Gillett, James N., 146–147 Glad, Betty, 234n68 globalization, 181 Godkin, Edwin L., 18–19, 191n23 Golden Rule, 97–98 Gompers, Samuel, 100–102, 101f, 106, 116, 127–128, 133, 226n79 Gorman, Arthur Pue, 54, 60–61, 201n7 Gould, Jay, 13 Gould, Lewis L., 232n46, 234n68 Graham, Thomas W., 189n9 Graves, John Temple, 65 great power diplomacy, 181, 185 great power politics, 24, 161 Grey, Edward, 155, 173–174 Griswold, Alfred W., 211n10 Guatemala: European interventions in, 35 Hagedorn, Hermann, 168 Haiti, 35, 91 Hale, Edward Everett, 36, 136, 138–139 Hale, Eugene, 121, 125–126, 132–133, 140f, 142, 155, 185, 225–226n79 Hanhimäki, Jussi, 187n1 Hanna, Mark, 55, 57, 67, 68f, 77, 202n30 Harbaugh, William, 188n5

257

Harding administration, 230n17 Harper’s Weekly, 62, 99–100, 203n42, 203n44, 204n51 Harrison, Benjamin, 13, 26–27 Hart, Justin, 189n17 Harvard College, 10 Harvard Crimson, 193n53 Harvey, George McClellan, 66 Hawaii, 24, 93, 141, 160 Hay, John, 31f, 204n48 and Chinese exclusion, 94, 103 correspondence with Strachey, 18, 191n20 correspondence with TR, 202n29 death of, 110 and Dillingham-Morales agreement, 82, 88 and European interventions in Latin America, 39, 49–51, 79 and Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 75 and Panamanian secession from Colombia, 61–62, 72–73, 201n12 political career, 30–31 as Secretary of State, 36, 43, 61–63, 72–73, 77–78 Hayashi, Tadasu, 128–129 Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 64, 68–71, 74–76, 206–207n86 Hayes, Everis A., 115, 138, 146 Hay-Herrán Treaty, 54–57, 203n34, 203n37 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 51–53 Healy, Patrick, 99 Hearst, William Randolph, 17f, 165 “National Security League Head Commends the New York American’s Stand for Preparedness on War,” 177 relationship with TR, 15–16, 176–177, 233n54 and relations with Japan, 129–130 TR’s view of, 16

258

258

Index

Hepburn Act, 53, 86–87 The Herald, 22–23 Herbert, Michael, 85 Higgins, Edward E., 227n92 Hitt, Robert, 38, 40, 63, 203–204n44 Hoar, George F., 66, 69 Hobson, Richmond P., 143 Holmes, James R., 190n9 Holsti, Ole R., 187n2 Howell, Clark, 64 Hughes, Charles Evans, 162, 165, 166f, 170–171, 174, 233n53, 234n68 humanitarianism, 132–133 “iceberg” bon mot, 233n53 Idaho: anti-Japanese legislation, 146 Illinois Staats-Zeitung, 33 immigration policy, 122, 183–184 Chinese immigration, 87, 93–94, 214n41 Japanese immigration, 87, 120–121, 127–128, 131–132, 144–147 imperialism Anti-Imperialist League, 139 anti-imperialists, 4, 29–30, 90–91, 210n35, 226n79 empire maintenance, 180 intervention in the Caribbean, 24, 35, 37, 135, 181–182 intervention in Cuba, 91 intervention in Dominican Republic, 77–92 intervention in Haiti, 35 intervention in Latin America, 34–50, 79, 89, 181 intervention in Panama, 4, 62–65, 69, 71–72, 75–76, 91 The Independent, 26–27, 203n42, 203n44, 204n55, 208n10, 208n13 and Panamanian secession from Colombia, 62

and preparations for military action, 119 internationalism, 27–28, 178–179, 181 international peace: prerequisites for, 231n35 Interstate Commerce Commission, 86 Ireland, 171 Irish-American, 196n12 Irish-Americans, 30–31, 158, 171 isolationism, 27–28, 188–189n8 Isthmian Canal Commission (Walker Commission), 14, 53 Italy, 196n7 J. & W. Seligman and Co. Bankers, 37 Jamestown Exposition (1907), 32 Japan relations with U.S., 129–134, 130f, 144–147, 224n59, 228n103 Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, 130–131 Japanese anti-Japanese sentiment, 120–123, 125–126, 131–132, 144–147 citizenship for, 121, 124 employment agencies, 129 exclusion of, 116, 123, 127–128, 130–132 immigration to the U.S., 87, 120–121, 127–128, 131–132, 144–147 naturalization of, 124–125, 218n8 Roosevelt and, 120–122, 124–129, 134, 144–147, 218n8 segregation of school children, 122–129, 145, 147, 184 Japanese-Korean Exclusion League (later known as the Asiatic Exclusion League), 100–101, 120–123, 145 Jews: TR’s efforts on behalf of, 7, 25, 26f, 79 jingoism, 43 Johns, Andrew L., 187n2 Johnson, Robert David, 187n1 Jordan, David Starr, 125

259

Index The Journal, 22–23 journalism, 135, 190n11. See also sensationalism journalists relations with TR, 14–15, 15f war correspondents, 173–174 Journal of the American Asiatic Association, 96, 108 Kahn, Julius, 115, 146 K’ang Yu-wei, 99, 104 Kansas City Star, 177 Kant, Immanuel, 181 Keller, Phyllis, 233n59 Kennan, George, 121 Kenseihonto, 129 Kent, William, 146 Kipling, Rudyard, 56, 161, 167, 175 Knox, Philander C., 147–148 Knox, William Franklin, 159–160 Kohn, Edward P., 189n15 Korea, 144 Koreans segregation of school children, 122–129 laborers, 93 LaFollette, Robert M., 169, 185, 233n63 Lansdowne, Lord, 39 Latin America: interventions in, 34–50, 79, 89, 181 Latin Americans: TR’s view of, 56 Lay, Julius, 103–104, 107, 110–111, 118 leadership, 157–159, 162, 177, 184 League of Nations, 160–161, 178–179, 181, 183, 231n35 League to Enforce Peace, 161, 178–179 leaks, 128, 137 Lee, Arthur Hamilton, 67, 173 legislation Adamson Act, 170 anti-Japanese, 145–147

259

Chinese Exclusion Act, 93–102, 106 Geary Act, 93 Hepburn Act, 53, 86–87 Spooner Act, 53–55, 57, 60, 69, 201n9 Le Matin, 74 Libby, W. H., 109 Life (journal), 204n55 Lincoln, Abraham, 4, 28, 158 Literary Digest, 227n94 Livernash, Edward J., 101 Lodge, Henry Cabot, 21f, 204n44 correspondence with TR, 36, 120, 139–140, 162–163, 165, 174–175, 178, 191n22 criticism of Cleveland, 25–26 demand for preparedness, 232n41 and intervention in Latin America, 24, 27, 38 lack of enthusiasm, 227n90 and naval expansion, 143–144 and Panama Canal, 51–52, 55, 70, 73 relationship with TR, 20–22, 167, 178 relationship with Wilson, 155 rhetoric, 20, 30–31, 78, 192n32 support for Blaine, 19 support for TR, 70, 78, 182, 231n35 Loeb, William, 17, 109, 136–137 Logevall, Fredrik, 187n1 Long, John Davis, 27 Loomis, Francis, 47–48, 59, 66, 74, 107, 109–111 Los Angeles Herald, 139–140, 227n93 Los Angeles Times, 125, 145–146, 227n93 Lusitania, 163 Lyon, Cecil A., 65 MacVeagh, Wayne, 71, 206n86 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 24, 29, 94, 135 Maine, 27 Manhattan Elevated Railway, 12–13 Manhattan Hotel, 66 Manson, N.J., 204n48

260

260

Index

Margarita, Venezuela, 36 Marks, Frederick, 190n9 Marroquín, José Manuel, 56–57, 70–71 Matthew, Franklin, 135 May Ernest R., 5–6 McAdoo, William G., 64 McBee, Silas, 75 McKinlay, Duncan, 145 McKinley, William, 16–17, 30–31, 51, 53 media coverage. See also newspapers; press foreign, 17–18 of presidents, 1–2 of TR, 152f mendacity, 136 Merchants’ Association of New York, 96 Metcalf, Victor H., 100, 128, 136–137, 141 The Metropolitan, 177 Mexicans: TR’s view of, 202n17 Mexico, 86–87, 155 military action: preparation for, 113–115, 117–119, 125. See also preparedness Milner, Helen V., 187n2 missionaries, 111, 113 The Missionary Review of the World, 97 Mobile Register, 64 Momotombo, 59 Monroe Doctrine, 35–36, 39–42, 78–79 German resentment of, 32 Roosevelt Corollary, 4, 8, 80–82, 87–92 support for, 51–52, 79 Venezuela crisis, 26–27 Montana: anti-Japanese legislation, 145 Moody, William H., 72–73 Moore, John Bassett, 58–59, 75, 88–89, 202n27 Morgan, John Tyler, 51–54, 61, 65, 69, 74–75, 201n9 Morison, George S., 53 Morocco, 7, 25, 60, 87 Morrell, Edwin, 213n27

Morton Hall (Twenty-First District Republican Association), 10–11 muckraking journalism, 190n11. See also sensationalism mugwumps, 19–20, 24, 28–29, 121, 132, 136, 175, 184, 191n23, 226n79 Munsey, Frank, 177 Münsterberg, Hugo, 43–44, 167–168 Murray, Joe, 10–11 The Nation, 19, 201n14 coverage of fleet cruise, 136 criticism of TR, 63, 210n35, 226n79 and Panama, 60, 62, 71 and Panama Canal, 55 TR’s view of, 19, 132–133 National Association of Manufacturers, 226n79 National Business League of America, 227n92 National Civic Federation, 117 National German-American Alliance, 167 nationalism, 20–22, 30, 35, 164, 178–179, 191n26 Chinese, 94–95 “The New Nationalism” (Roosevelt), 150–151 National Security League, 163, 170, 177 “National Security League Head Commends the New York American’s Stand for Preparedness on War” (Hearst), 177 naturalization, 94, 124–125, 218n8 The Naval War of 1812 (Roosevelt), 20 The Navy, 138 Needham, James C., 146 neutrality, 2, 153 Nevada: anti-Japanese legislation, 145–146 Newberry, Truman, 135 Newlands, Francis G., 146 “The New Nationalism” (Roosevelt), 150–151

261

Index New Panama Canal Company (Compagnie Nouvelle du Canal de Panama), 53–54, 58, 62, 69, 202n30 newspapers, 6–7. See also press; specific papers anti-imperialist, 210n35, 226n79 based in New York City, 6–7 coverage of fleet cruise, 135–141, 223n56, 227n93 Democratic, 22, 210n35 muckraking journalism, 190n11 southern, 210n35 support for four-battleship program, 141, 227n94 TR’s use of, 13 New York American, 8–9, 15, 165, 206n80, 233n54, 235n84 and Panama Canal, 54–55 and U.S. intervention in Panama, 71 New York Anti-Imperialist League, 63–64 New York City, New York: publications based in, 6–7 New Yorker Handelszeitung, 33 New-Yorker Staats-Zeitung, 38, 43–44, 49–50, 165 New York Evening Telegram, 227n94 New York Herald, 38, 60, 130–131, 144, 204n51, 224n62 New York Journal, 15–16 New York State Assembly, 11–13, 11f New York State Chamber of Commerce, 66, 86 New York Times, 27, 171, 204nn45–46, 206n80 coverage of anti-Japanese legislation, 146 coverage of fleet cruise, 137, 223n56 coverage of German vote, 234n68 coverage of La Follette, 233n63 coverage of violence in China, 216n62

261

and naval expansion, 142 and preparations for military action, 119 support for TR, 63, 126, 208n13 TR opinion pieces, 160–162 New-York Tribune, 38, 203n42, 232n52 and anti-Japanese legislation, 146 coverage of fleet cruise, 138 coverage of La Follette, 233n63 “Exclusion Run Mad,” 97–98 and Panamanian secession from Colombia, 61–62 and preparations for military action, 119 and presidential election of 1904, 84 support for Dillingham-Morales agreement, 88–89 support for TR’s intervention, 228n102 WWI coverage, 177 Ng Poon-Chew, 99 Nicaragua: as site for Panama Canal, 52–55, 60, 70 Nichols, Christopher McKnight, 189n8 Nixon, George S., 146 Nye, Joseph, 188n5 O’Brien, Thomas J., 141 offensiveness, 122 O’Laughlin, John Callan, 48–49, 117, 126, 137–138, 140–141, 225n76 Olney, Richard, 26–27 Open Door notes, 96 Open Door policy, 145 Orange Plan, 135 Oregon: anti-Japanese legislation, 145 organized labor, 102, 226n79 Organized Labor, 101, 227n93 Otis, Harrison Gray, 125, 127 The Outlook, 65, 124–125, 138, 204n54, 228n102 Pacific Ocean, 24 U.S. Navy in, 135–141, 224n62

26

262

Index

Page, Benjamin I., 189n9 Palmer, Frederick, 173–174 Panama papers and correspondence relating to, 62, 204n45 as part of Colombia, 52–54 secession from Colombia, 57–63, 70, 73, 155, 201n12, 202n30 U.S. intervention in, 4, 62–65, 69, 71–72, 75–76, 91 U.S. recognition of, 63, 69, 73 Panama Canal construction of, 53, 62, 181–182 fortification of, 160 history of, 51–76, 207n98 papers and correspondence relating to, 62, 204n45 support for, 24, 64, 70, 180 Panama Canal Zone, 54, 155 Parker, Alton B., 82, 84, 163 partisanship, 3, 22, 25–27, 136, 179–180 patriotism, 4, 27 Pauncefote, Julian, 51–53 peace: prerequisites for, 231n35 peace advocates, 225–226n79 Peace Association of Friends of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 225n79 peacemaking, 137 Pearl Harbor, 141 Perdicaris, Ion, 25 Perkins, Bradford, 30 Perkins, George C., 108–109, 115, 147 Permanent Court of Arbitration (The Hague), 89 Phelan, James D., 145–146 Philadelphia North American, 177 philanthropists, 93 Philippines, 4, 26, 87, 93, 114 Piles, Samuel H., 109, 143 plain people, 4, 28–29, 77

Platt, Orville H., 42 Platt, Thomas C., 18 politics domestic, 4–5, 7–8 ethnic, 189n12 great power, 24, 55 U.S. foreign policy, 1–3, 7–8, 10–50, 180–185 WWI, 174–179 Portland (Oregon) Chamber of Commerce, 96, 139–140 Powderly, Terence, 93 Powderly policy, 93–94 Powlick, Philip J., 189n9 preaching, 13, 190n9 preparedness, 143, 177, 183 fight for, 4, 111, 158–174, 172f, 231n36, 232n41 opposition to, 232n48 press. See also newspapers; specific papers coverage of Chinese boycott of U.S. products, 95–96 coverage of presidents, 1–2 coverage of relations with Japan, 129–134, 130f coverage of TR, 14–18, 15f, 66–67, 152f foreign, 17–18 muckraking journalism, 190n11 positive reports, 214n36 support for TR, 126 Progressive Party, 153–154, 164, 174–175, 191n22, 232n48 propaganda, German, 47, 233n58 public diplomacy (German), 32 public diplomacy (U.S.), 7–8, 91–92, 126–127, 172–173, 189n17 public opinion, 27–28, 184. See also newspapers; press anti-imperialists, 4, 29–30, 90–91 anti-Japanese sentiment, 120–123, 125–126, 131–132, 144–147

263

Index vs. elites, 89–92 evaluation of, 7 and foreign policy, 7–8, 147–149 influencing, 113–115, 117–118 Japanese rhetoric, 134 preparation for military action, 117–118 and relations with Japan, 129–134 vs. Senate, 89–92 support for Monroe Doctrine, 79 support for preparedness and Americanism, 163 support for Taft, 150, 151f support for TR, 4–5, 8–9, 66f, 67, 77, 84–85, 90–92, 152f, 181–182, 204n53, 228n102 critical, 81, 83f, 84 German-American, 47–50 support for U.S. intervention in Panama, 64–65, 66f TR’s influence on, 14–18, 15f, 66–67, 113–115, 126–127, 132–133, 135, 138, 147–149, 162–163, 177–178, 181–184 TR’s view of, 27–29, 90–91, 112–113, 134, 161–162, 184 voting public, 5–6 war scares, 70–74, 128–134 public relations, 135 bully pulpit, 13 maximization of publicity, 135 spin, 190n5 Puck, 204n55 on Chinese exclusion, 97–98 on GOP convention of 1904, 78f on Panama policy, 66f portrait of Wilson, 157f on relations with Japan, 130f on TR and Taft transfer of policy, 151f on TR as would-be emperor, 83f Pulitzer, Joseph, 15

263

Quill Club (Manhattan Hotel), 66 racism and discrimination, 56, 93, 121, 146, 202n17, 216n69 Radicalism, 86 railroad rates, 86 railroads Canton-Hankow, 111 Manhattan Elevated Railway, 12–13 Reid, Whitelaw, 61 Republican Party, 18–19, 22, 85 leadership of, 67, 150–153, 164, 174–175, 178–180, 183 National Convention (Chicago, 1904), 25, 78f Reyes, Rafael, 71, 73, 206n86 Reynolds, James B., 212n15 rhetoric, see also sensationalism anti-British, 30–31 “iceberg” bon mot, 233n53 inflammatory, 145 Japanese, 134 rhetorical presidency, 90 Ricard, Serge, 199n46 Rice, Cecil Spring, 122, 150, 173 Ridder, Herman, 49f Riis, Jacob, 14 Rochester Herald, 172f Rockhill, William H., 96, 103–108, 110–111, 113, 118 Rodgers, James L., 106–107, 111 Romania: Jews in, 7, 25 Roosevelt, Archie, 162 Roosevelt, Kermit, 162 Roosevelt, Quentin, 176 Roosevelt, Theodore, 182f anti-British rhetoric, 30–31 appeals to rise above partisanship, 26–27 as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (1897–1898), 23–24, 27

264

264

Index

Roosevelt, Theodore (cont.) campaign for naval expansion, 23–24, 32–33, 141–144 campaign for preparedness and Americanism, 4, 111, 158–174, 172f and Chinese relations, 93, 95–96, 102–111, 114–119 and Civil War, 192n35 Colombia policy, 72–73 as Commissioner of the Civil Service, 13 concerns about Germany, 32–33, 36 correspondence with Burroughs, 204n44 correspondence with Carnegie, 224n59 correspondence with Hay, 202n29 correspondence with Lodge, 36, 120, 139–140, 162–163, 165, 174–175, 178, 191n22 criticism of, 210n35 death, 179, 183 demagoguery, 168 desire for action, 184–185 early correspondence, 190n11 early life and career in New York, 189n15 education of, 8, 10–33 efforts on behalf of Russian Jews, 7, 25, 26f Fear God and Take Your Own Part, 164 and fleet cruise, 135, 137–139, 223n56 foreign policy, 7–9, 22–33, 77–87, 122, 147–149, 180–185, 189n18 and Foster bill, 119 as Governor of New York, 16, 23, 51–52 and Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 75 and Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 51–52 health problems, 154, 176, 229n11 “iceberg” bon mot, 233n53 immigration policy, 122 influence on foreign policy, 9

influence on public opinion, 14–18, 15f, 66–67, 113–115, 126–127, 132–133, 135, 138, 147–149, 162–163, 177–178, 181–184 and Japanese people, 120–122, 124–129, 134, 144–147, 218n8 leadership style, 177–178, 230n22 legacy, 181 military posture, 72–73 and Monroe Doctrine, 8, 35, 39–42, 51–52, 78–80, 82, 86 moral seriousness, 190n9 nationalism, 20, 191n26 naval program, 227nn92–94 “The New Nationalism,” 150–151 as New York State Assemblyman, 11–13, 11f, 20 obstacles, 2–3 opposition to anti-Japanese agitation, 144–147 and Panama episode, 51–76, 66f, 90, 204n45, 207n98 partisanship, 22 personal feelings, 161 personal life, 175–176 persuasive powers, 183–184 political acumen, 3–5, 20, 85, 166 political career, 11–12 political education, 12–23 and postwar settlement, 178–179 post–White House career, 154, 176, 183 preaching, 13, 190n9 preparation for military action, 113–115 presidential campaign(s), 30–31, 62, 78–79, 83f, 153, 159–160, 164–165, 172f, 191n22, 234n68 presidential election of 1904, 84 as President of the New York City Board of Police Commissioners, 13 as President of the U.S., 2, 23–24, 35, 77–78, 189n18, 230n19

265

Index professional education, 8, 10–33 progressive policies, 67 public diplomacy, 7–8, 91–92, 172–173, 185 public life as a private citizen, 154, 176, 183 public speaking, 127, 177 public support for, 4, 8–9, 66f, 67, 77, 84–85, 90–92, 152f, 181–182, 204n53, 228n102 critical, 81, 83f, 84 German-American, 47–50 public writings, 177, 193n53 racism, 56, 121–122, 216n69 recognition of Panama, 63, 69 referendum on, 82–83, 209n18 relationship with Democratic Party, 22–23, 175, 184 relationship with Hearst, 16, 176–177 relationship with Hughes, 165, 170–171 relationship with Lodge, 20–22, 70, 78, 167, 178, 182, 231n35 relationship with the press and public opinion, 14–18, 15f, 66–67, 126, 135, 138, 147–149, 152f, 177–178 relationship with Progressive Party, 153–154, 174–175 relationship with Republican Party, 18–19, 67, 77, 78f, 86, 150–153, 164, 175, 178–179 relationship with Taft, 97, 98f, 132, 148, 150–153, 161, 178–179, 229n3, 233n53 relationship with White, 177–178 retirement, 150–151, 176 self-belief, 184–185 shame, 20 statesmanship, 9, 181, 185 “The Strenuous Life,” 190n9

265

support for Blaine, 18–19 support for expansion of U.S. influence, 3 support for naturalization for Chinese, 124–125 support for naturalization for Japanese, 124–125, 218n8 support for Powderly policy, 93–94 as prophet, 182–183 and Venezuela crisis, 8, 38–39, 44–46 as Vice President of the U.S., 23–24, 35 view of American people, 4, 134, 157–158, 161–162 view of Chinese, 216n69 view of Godkin, 19 view of Hearst, 8 view of international peace, 231n35 view of Japanese, 121–122 view of Latin Americans, 56 view of Mexicans, 202n17 view of mugwump worldview, 19–20, 28 view of plain people, 4, 28–29 view of public opinion, 27–29, 90–91, 112–113, 134, 161–162, 184 view of U.S. Constitution, 27–29 view of U.S. system, 4, 134 view of warfare, 176 view of Wilson, 9, 153–158, 162, 167, 176–177, 179, 185, 230n19, 230n22 vision, 183 The Winning of the West, 24 worldview, 111, 191n26 and WWI, 4, 150–179, 185 Roosevelt Corollary, 4, 8, 80–82, 87–92 “A Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine” (Root), 88 Roosevelt family, 192n35 Roosevelt Non-Partisan League, 164, 232n52

26

266

Index

Root, Elihu, 13, 77–78, 80–81, 112, 118, 133f, 134, 139, 175, 232n46 and Chinese boycott of U.S. products, 110–111 and Chinese exclusion, 115–116 “A Corollary of the Monroe Doctrine,” 88 and Japanese relations, 130–132, 145 and naval expansion, 143 as Secretary of State, 110–111, 115–116, 123, 129, 131–132 support for preparedness and Americanism, 163–164 Rosenau, James, 189n9 Ross, Edward A., 148 Ruef, Abe, 123 Russell, Greg, 235n93 Russia: Jews in, 7, 25 Russo-Japanese War, 7, 60, 135 Sagamore Hill, 15f San Francisco, California, 104 Board of Police Commissioners, 129 Chamber of Commerce, 131 earthquake, 104, 122–123 segregation of Japanese (along with Chinese and Korean) school children, 122–129, 145, 147, 184 streetcar strike, 129 San Francisco Call, 218n8, 227n93 San Francisco Chronicle, 203n42, 203n44, 206n80 and Chinese Exclusion Act, 100 coverage of fleet cruise, 139–140, 227n93 and presidential election of 1904, 84 support for Japanese immigration, 120–121, 145 support for San Francisco school board, 123 support for TR, 204n53 San Francisco Examiner, 8–9, 37–38, 123, 128, 145, 227n93

San Francisco Merchants’ Exchange, 96, 99, 114–115, 131 Sängerfest Association, 49–50 Sargent, Frank P., 93, 106 satire, 16 Saturday Evening Post, 164 Schmitz, Eugene, 123, 128–129 Schurman, Jacob Gould, 55, 57, 66, 209n13 Schuyler, Montgomery, 126 Schwartz, Thomas, 187n1 Scott, Nathan Bay, 197n26 segregation of Japanese (along with Chinese and Korean) school children, 122–129, 145, 147, 184 sensationalism, 8–9, 16, 112, 140–141 Chinese war scare, 70–74 Japanese war scare, 128–131, 130f, 132–134 separation of powers, 2–3 Sexton, Jay, 189n8 Shapiro, Benjamin Y., 189n9 Shaw, Albert, 23, 42, 57, 63, 67, 85, 88–89, 138, 204n54 Shaw, Leslie Mortimer, 65–66, 107 Sino-Japanese War, 94–95 Small, Melvin, 187n1, 189n16 Small, Samuel White, 65 Snyder, Alban, 72–73 socialism, 86, 184 southern newspapers, 210n35 Spanish-American War, 2–3, 16, 27, 181 The Spectator, 18, 174, 191n20 spin, 190n5 Spooner, John Coit, 53–54, 70, 75 Spooner Act, 53–55, 57, 60, 69, 201n9 Springfield Republican, 201n14, 203n37, 204n46 and four-battleship policy, 141 opposition to fleet cruise, 136 opposition to TR, 63, 118, 210n35, 226n79, 228n102 and Panama Canal, 55–56, 72 and presidential election of 1904, 84

267

Index and relations with Japan, 129 support for preparedness and Americanism, 163 St. Louis Post-Dispatch, 37 Standard Oil, 96, 107, 109–111 Stanton, Philip A., 147 Star and Herald, 58 Steffens, Lincoln, 190n11 Stephens, John H., 195n73 Stimson, Henry, 170 Stone, Melvin, 139 Storey, Moorfield, 139 Strachey, John St. Loe, 17–18, 158, 174, 191n20 “The Strenuous Life” (Roosevelt), 190n9 suffrage, women’s, 189n10 The Sun, 38, 135 opposition to fleet cruise, 136, 139–141 opposition to TR, 136, 204n54, 228n102 and Panamanian secession from Colombia, 62 and presidential election of 1904, 84 and U.S. foreign policy, 81 Taft, William Howard, 114 and Chinese exclusion, 105–106, 115–116 foreign policy, 160 and naval expansion, 142 and postwar settlement, 178–179 as President, 9, 150–152, 151f public opinion of, 150, 151f relationship with TR, 97, 98f, 132, 148, 150–153, 161, 178–179, 229n3, 233n53 as Secretary of War, 87, 96–97, 117–118, 128 as special emissary to China, 108–110 Takahira, Kogoro, 145 Tawney, James A., 225n79, 226n81 Taylor, H. C., 32 Teller, Henry, 60, 197n15 Thompson, David D., 191n20

267

Thompson, John A., 187n2 Tilchin, William, 188n5 Tillman, Ben, 116–117 Times-Democrat, 64, 198n32 Tingley, Dustin, 187n2 Tokyo Chamber of Commerce, 130–131 Tokyo Exposition (1912), 144–145 TR. See Roosevelt, Theodore trademark protection, 144–145 Trans-Mississippi Congress, 105 Treaty of Portsmouth, 7 Treaty of Versailles, 178–179 Tulis, Jeffrey, 90 Tveitmoe, Olaf, 100–101, 120–121, 123, 127–128 Twenty-First District Republican Association (Morton Hall), 10–11 Union Labor Party, 123 Union Pacific Railroad, 111 United Nations, 181 United States Adamson Act, 170 benign nature of, 80 Chinese boycott of products from, 8–9, 95–114, 211n10 Chinese Exclusion Act, 93–102, 106 Chinese exclusion policy, 93–103, 106, 115–117, 119, 216n69 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty, 52 cultural diplomacy, 189n17 emergence as great power, 2–3, 24, 99 expansion of influence, 3 foreign policy, 1–3, 9–33, 35, 79–84, 122, 150–185 Germany’s image in, 47–50 Harding administration, 230n17 Hay-Pauncefote Treaty, 51–53 immigration policy, 8–9, 131–132 Chinese immigration, 87, 93–94, 214n41 Japanese immigration, 87, 120–121, 127–128, 131–132, 144–147

268

268

Index

United States (cont.) influence in China, 94 intervention in the Caribbean, 24, 181–182 intervention in Cuba, 91 intervention in Dominican Republic, 77–92 intervention in Latin America, 41–42 intervention in Panama, 4, 62–65, 69, 71–72, 75–76, 91 McKinley administration, 51, 96 military preparations, 113–115, 117–119, 125 neutrality, 2, 153 preparedness, 143, 177, 183 fight for, 4, 111, 158–174, 172f, 231n36, 232n41 opposition to, 232n48 presidency, 181 presidential campaigns, 1 presidential elections, 77–92, 153, 174 public diplomacy, 126–127, 189n17 recognition of Panama, 63, 69, 73 relations with Britain, 30, 171, 173–174 relations with China, 8–9, 93–119 relations with Colombia, 70–74 relations with Germany, 32, 34–35, 48 relations with Japan, 120–149, 130f, 228n103 relations with Korea, 144–145 Roosevelt administration, 95–102, 117–118, 229n3 separation of powers, 2–3 Spanish-American war (1898), 2–3 trade with China, 96 Wilson administration, 169, 175, 233–234n63 women’s suffrage, 189n10 during WWI, 2 United States Army, 160 United States Bureau of Immigration, 93, 98–100, 103, 106, 212n15

United States Constitution, 2–3, 27–29, 184 United States Department of Commerce and Labor, 103 United States Department of State, 103, 117–118 United States Department of the Navy, 41, 118 United States Department of War, 118 United States House of Representatives and Chinese exclusion, 115–117 Committee on Appropriations, 115–116 Committee on Foreign Affairs, 116 debate about Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 68–70 Hepburn Bill, 53 support for U.S. intervention in Panama, 64–65 United States Navy in the Caribbean, 36, 59–60, 71–72, 197n18 expansion of, 20, 79, 87, 125, 181–182, 184 fight for, 23–24, 32–33, 141–144 opposition to, 4, 142 four-battleship program, 141–144, 227n94 modernization of, 125 Orange Plan, 135 transfer to the Pacific (fleet cruise), 135–141, 223n56, 224n59, 224n62 opposition to, 136, 139–141 press coverage of, 135–141, 223n56, 227n93 public support for, 139–140 United States Senate and Chinese exclusion, 115–117 Committee on Appropriations, 117–118 Committee on Foreign Relations, 89 Committee on Naval Affairs, 121, 136

269

Index and Dillingham-Morales agreement, 88–89 and Hay-Bunau-Varilla Treaty, 68–70, 75 vs. public opinion, 89–92 recognition of Panama, 63 and U.S. intervention in Panama, 64–65 U.S. Steel, 229n3 Uyeno, Kisaburo, 123 Venezuela: European interventions in, 8, 26–27, 34–35, 79, 91 European blockade, 36–41, 44–46, 79–80 TR on, 28 U.S naval response, 197n18 Viereck, George Sylvester, 168, 233n58 von Bülow, Bernhard, 47–49 von Lengerke Meyer, George, 163 von Mach, Edmund Robert Otto, 167 von Quadt, Albert, 34, 39 von Schleinitz, Emil, 43 von Sternburg, Hermann Speck, 35, 46–48, 48f, 79, 132–134 voting public, 5–6 Walker Commission (Isthmian Canal Commission), 14, 53 Wallace, William, 13 Wall Street campaigns, 136 Wall Street elite. See elites Wall Street Journal, 61–62, 108, 138, 228n102 war correspondents, 173–174 Ward, Hamilton, 13 warfare, 176 Warren, Francis E., 143–144 war scares Chinese, 70–74 Japanese, 129–134 The Washington Post, 32, 136, 201n14

269

Washington Times, 45 Webb, Silas D., 116–117 Weismann, Henry, 171 Westbrook, T. R., 13 Wharton, Charles, 213n27 Wheeler, Benjamin Ide, 174 Wheelwright, William D., 109, 212n16 White, Andrew, 127 White, Henry, 39, 124, 134, 185 White, William Allen, 14, 158, 162, 175–178 Whitney, Caspar, 177, 235n86 “Why Roosevelt Would Be Our Best Guarantee of Peace” (Roosevelt Non-Partisan League), 164 Widenor, William C., 21, 188n6 Wiley, Ariosto Appling, 138 Wilhelm II, Emperor, 38 Williams, John Sharp, 68–69, 81, 225–226n79, 226n81 Wilson, Huntington, 131–132 Wilson, Woodrow, 157f foreign policy, 158–159, 161 Fourteen Points speech, 178–179 leadership style, 157–158, 230n22 presidential administration, 169, 175, 233–234n63 presidential campaign, 171 presidential election, 153, 174 TR's dislike of, 9, 153–158, 162, 167, 176–177, 179, 185, 230n19, 230n22 The Winning of the West (Roosevelt), 24 women’s suffrage, 189n10 Wordsworth, William Austin, 233n53 The World, 15–16, 22–23, 47, 200n53, 203n42, 203n44, 206n80, 225n79 criticism of TR, 141–142, 210n35 and intervention in Panama, 71 opposition to anti-Japanese legislation, 146 opposition to fleet cruise, 136

270

270

Index

The World (cont.) opposition to naval expansion, 141–142 and Panama Canal, 55 and Panamanian secession from Colombia, 60 support for TR, 228n102 and U.S. foreign policy, 81

World War I, 150–179, 235n84 pro-Ally sympathies, 4 U.S. participation, 2, 9, 181–182 Wright, Luke, 126 Yale University, 63–64 Yamamoto, Gombei, 134

271

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273

274

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276