The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (29 page)

A. 3,417

B. 94

C. 51

D. 612

11-5 When did the last passenger pigeon in the United States die?

A. 1914

B. 1900

C. 2010

D. 1847

ANSWERS

11-1. A: There are two other definitions, both having to do with anatomy. An isthmus can be a narrow strip of tissue joining two larger organs or parts of an organ, or a narrow passage connecting two larger cavities.

11-2. B: If the Panama Canal had not been built, they would have had to sail around Cape Horn, South America, instead–a rather long journey.

11-3. True: In 1921, the United States paid Colombia $25 million for its loss of Panama.

11-4. C

11-5. A: It is believed that the last passenger pigeon in the United States, Martha, died on September 1, 1914, at the Cincinnati Zoo.

CHAPTER 12

His Second Act Is Better than His First

“I am glad to be elected President in my own right.”

TR had a lot to be proud of after his first term. He had no intention of sitting on his laurels. He wanted to lead the United States into the twentieth century as a world power, knowing that all the turmoil across the globe would eventually involve the country. He also had ambitious plans for his domestic conservation and reform efforts. The president pursued his foreign and domestic agenda with a great deal of fervor and achieved notable results on both fronts.

1905 Is a Busy Year

1905 got off to a favorable start for TR long before his Inauguration Day. The first piece of good news came on January 30, when the Supreme Court ruled unanimously for the United States in its “trustbusting” case against the meat packing firm of Swift & Company.

The Swift & Company decision affected interstate commerce and expanded federal power under the commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution by ruling that locally operated businesses that made products sold in interstate markets could be subject to federal regulation. The decision set a positive tone for the rest of the year—and his administration.

Two days after the Swift & Company news, TR accomplished another milestone by establishing the National Forest Service. Four months later he made the Wichita Forest in Oklahoma the first federal game preserve. He established three more before his term ended: the Grand Canyon (1908); Fire Island, Alaska (1909); and National Bison Range, Montana (1909).

By 1900 there were 550 living bison in the United States. In 1905, the American Bison Society and the New York Zoological Society donated fifteen bison to the Wichita National Forest and Game Preserve in Oklahoma. Congress contributed $15,000 to support the move and TR set aside the land as a federal reserve. Bison were on their way to recovery.

TR’s most pressing issue that year was negotiating peace between Japan and Russia, which were involved in a mutually destructive war over territorial dominance.

We Have Responsibilities

In his inauguration speech on March 4, 1905, TR set the tone for his first full term in office. He told Americans that their country’s international role was expanding out of necessity.

“We have become a great nation, forced by the fact of its greatness into relations with the other nations of the earth, and we must behave as beseems a people with such responsibilities,” he said. “Much has been given us, and much will rightfully be expected from us.”

TR stressed his usual message of “duties to others and duties to ourselves, and we can shirk neither.” As events turned out, he took those words seriously.

TR also hinted at his domestic policy. He noted that industrial development had changed society tremendously, and not always for the better.

“The conditions which have told for our marvelous material well-being, which have developed to a very high degree our energy, self-reliance, and individual initiative, have also brought the care and anxiety inseparable from the accumulation of great wealth in industrial centers,” he observed. His meaning was clear.

TR was going to address the “accumulation of great wealth” in the interests of righteousness and social justice. For him, the words he uttered were more than empty rhetoric. He intended to act. The ride began immediately.

Ode to Mothers

TR delivered a speech to the National Congress of Mothers in Washington, D.C., on March 13, 1905, that showed another side of him. It was no secret that he was sympathetic to the status of women and children in society. As he wrote in a later book,
The Conservation of Womanhood and Childhood
, published in 1912, “We must work then for each partial remedy that may alleviate something of the misery of mankind, that may cause a measurable betterment in the condition of children, women and men.”

The book was actually an expanded version of a speech he delivered in 1911 to the Civic Forum and the Child’s Welfare League. One promotional piece for the book stated:

Conservation has been long a favorite theme with the ex-President, and no phase of it has interested him more than that applying to Womanhood and Childhood. It is here presented as revised and extended by him during the activities of his summer campaign of 1912
.

TR was looking ahead for issues to address in his presidential campaign that year. By 1912, the plight of womanhood and childhood had become familiar themes for TR—and suitable issues for a presidential campaign. First, he had to end a war.

Peace Between Russia and Japan

Russia and Japan went to war in February 1904 over the issue of who had dominance in Korea and Manchuria. The war was short, but costly, for both countries. By 1905, it was beginning to affect the rest of the world.

TR and his counterparts around the globe did not see any end in sight to the war, even though Japan was gaining the upper hand. They sought a way to stop the fighting before other countries became involved. TR stepped in to settle a dispute, as many people expected him to do. After all, he had settled the coal strike a couple of years earlier. Why not end a war as well?

John Hay, TR’s secretary of state, had been one of President Lincoln’s secretaries. He and TR’s father had also been friends. Even though TR wanted to conduct the Russo-Japanese War peace talks himself, it would have been too delicate for him to remove Hay. Fate stepped in. Hay died in July 1905, which allowed the president to lead the negotiations.

In June 1905, TR volunteered to meet with delegates from the two countries to settle their differences aboard his presidential yacht,
Mayflower
, which was moored at Oyster Bay. Both sides agreed. He stayed there while the negotiators moved to the naval base at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, in August 1905 to hammer out the details of the peace talks.

Delegates shuttled back and forth between Portsmouth and Oyster Bay. It took a few weeks to negotiate a solution satisfactory to both sides, but Russia and Japan finally signed a peace treaty at Kittery, Maine, on September 5.

According to the terms, Russia recognized Japan as the dominant power in Korea and turned over its naval leases of Port Arthur, Manchuria and the Liaotung Peninsula, as well as the southern half of Sakhalin Island, to Japan. Both countries consented to restore power in Manchuria to China. The settlement was a political coup for President Roosevelt, but he had no illusions about its impact on peace around the world.

TR recognized that the growing power of Eastern countries and their opposition to interference from their Western counterparts was a powder keg waiting for a match. The fact that Japan had emerged victorious in a war against a traditional Western power—a first-time event for any Eastern country—was a signal to him that the United States must heed.

TR wrote in a September 8, 1905, letter to his political opponent and disarmament advocate, Carl Schurz, “Until people get it firmly fixed in their minds that peace is valuable chiefly as a means to righteousness, and that it can only be considered as an end when it also coincides with righteousness, we can do only a limited amount to advance its coming on this earth.”

He did not believe peace was a viable option anywhere around the globe. The United States needed to flex its muscles in preparation. Before he could arrange for that, he received a pleasant reward for his efforts at Portsmouth.

Streamlining the Executive Office

On June 2, 1905, TR created a Commission on Department Methods to look into ways to streamline the “conduct of the executive business of the Government in all its branches on the most effective basis in the light of the best modern business practice.” He believed the system in place was ineffective and costly. And, TR boasted, the commission’s work would be performed “wholly without cost to the government.”

The effort paid off. The commission recommended changes in the way the Executive Branch operated that saved the government hundreds of thousands of dollars.

The biggest outcome of the study and the ultimate implementation of the recommendations created a new view among workers in the public sector regarding the importance of their work for the public. TR was always looking for ways to improve processes and save money for the citizens. He gave them a direct example of how to use money for the public good after he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

TR saved the country money. He noted, “One thing is worth pointing out: During the seven and a half years of my Administration we … reduced the burden of the taxpayers; for we reduced the interest-bearing debt by more than $90,000,000. To achieve a marked increase in efficiency and at the same time an increase in economy is not an easy feat; but we performed it.”

Winning the Nobel Prize