Theodore Rex (106 page)

If conservatives in the audience could believe their ears, the President was proposing that government should profit from, and even confiscate, the rewards of private enterprise. His subsequent warning that railroad rate regulation was but “a first step” toward greater federal control of the economy sounded a declaration of ideological war.

Was it, though? Roosevelt’s by now compulsive habit of following every statement with a counterstatement (positives neutralizing negatives and
on the other hand
used as a kind of conjunction) muted the overall effect of his speech.
Those who had heard him off the record at the Gridiron were disappointed. He sounded progressive one minute and reactionary the next, as he alternately scowled and smiled at muckraking and moneymaking, allowing that there were good and bad varieties of each.

Reporters got plenty of quotes, but their editors were not too sure which way, ideologically, the President was headed. If in the direction of restraint of free speech, he would sooner or later collide with Justice Holmes. If he wanted more and more centralized government, then Senator LaFollette would be quick to march behind him, as would Upton Sinclair and a lengthening line of socialists and communists.

Men with muckrakes continued their work—some, such as Baker, decently and doggedly, others, like David Graham Phillips, with waning fervor. Good investigative reporting was simply too expensive for most editors, and too slow for journalists paid by the piece. Baker felt betrayed by Roosevelt, who had seemed so encouraging of his work, yet had now twice trivialized it by association. He still admired the President’s “remarkable versatility of mind,” if not the seeming versatility of his principles.

SENATORS TILLMAN AND
Bailey learned a similar lesson on 4 May, the day after they introduced their Roosevelt-backed “narrow review” amendment to the Hepburn Bill. After five weeks of secret negotiations conducted through William E. Chandler, Tillman felt in honor bound to let the White House know that he was, as yet, one vote short of the twenty-six he had promised.

At 3:00 that afternoon, Roosevelt called a press conference and announced, as if the Tillman-Bailey Amendment had suddenly ceased to exist, that he had decided to support a “broad review” amendment crafted by Senator Allison. Rambling for almost a half hour, he imputed his own switch to the Republican leadership, which had accepted the will of the American people.

A disillusioned progressive reporter interrupted him. “But Mr. President, what we want to know is why you surrendered.”

Tillman and Bailey wanted to know, more basically, how any self-respecting politician could yield to the embrace of the opposition for five weeks, then to that of his own party at the merest whiff of a winning vote. At any rate, their loss was Roosevelt’s gain. Republicans fell into line behind him like stock cars on the Santa Fe.
Even Senator Elkins endorsed the Hepburn Bill, saying with a straight face that although he owned a large quantity of railroad stock, he was “ten times” more sympathetic toward shippers than toward carriers. The most ambitious legislative initiative since Reconstruction could now move to passage as a co-achievement of the White House and the Republican leadership. Democrats seeking re-election in the fall would have to find another law to boast about.

“
I love a brave man,” Bailey said, “I love a fighter, and the President of the United States is both—on occasions; but he can yield with as much alacrity as any man who ever went into battle.”

ROOSEVELT TRANQUILLY RECEIVED
the British writer H. G. Wells at the White House on 6 May. They lunched and strolled the grounds together. Wells, who was on assignment for the London
Tribune
, noted that the President had none of the usual stiffness of politicians afraid of being quoted. He talked in the manner of Arthur Balfour, another intellectual who had risen to supreme eminence. But unlike that unhappy statesman, recently deposed, Roosevelt had the “power of overriding doubts in a sort of mystical exaltation.” He seemed more representative than patrician:

“A COMPLEX MINGLING OF WILL
AND CRITICAL PERPLEXITY.”
Theodore Roosevelt in mid-sentence
.
(photo credit 26.1)

Having read extensively in Roosevelt’s earlier writings, Wells had expected “Teddy” the Rough Rider, all slouch hat and swordsmanship. Instead, he found himself dealing with a friendly, gray-clad statesman, whose voice was more confidential than strenuous, and whose clenched fist waved almost absentmindedly. The President’s screwed-up, bespectacled face conveyed “a complex mingling of will and critical perplexity.” There again, Roosevelt was representative. “Never did a President so reflect the quality of his time.”

IF BY “QUALITY
of his time” Wells was alluding to
the progressive impulse behind Roosevelt’s current regulatory proposals, its force burgeoned in the days immediately following.
Tillman railed against the President for treachery and manipulation of muckrakers, but his language was oddly muted, as if he had to acknowledge that the Hepburn Bill deserved bipartisan support.

On 18 May, the Senate approved the bill with only three dissenting
votes—two by gentlemen from Alabama, and one from the lone Republican who still hoarsely declaimed the right of railroads to regulate themselves: Joseph B. Foraker of Ohio. Even though the original Roosevelt-Dolliver measure’s simplicity was now complicated by the Allison Amendment, its sheer accumulation of legislative weight, from a motion few supported to a majority measure only extreme conservatives opposed, was evidence that the President
had started something very big.

Railroad rate regulation was not yet a reality, since the bill now had to be reported to a joint committee of the House and Senate. This did not stop early words of praise from flowing Roosevelt’s way. The most moving were uttered by the man most disposed to choke on them. “But for the work of Theodore Roosevelt in bringing this matter to the attention of the country, we would not have had any bill at all,” Benjamin R. Tillman said. “Whatever success may come from it will largely be due to him.”

AS THE WEATHER WARMED
, so did the attitude of both Houses toward other items of progressive legislation. Joseph Cannon grudgingly relaxed his opposition to the Pure Food Bill. Senator Beveridge introduced a separate meat-inspection bill based on the President’s secret investigation of Packingtown practices—a probe that not only vindicated everything Upton Sinclair had written in
The Jungle
, but
supplied extra details so disgusting that Roosevelt could not bring himself to release them. He did not scruple, however, to let congressional leaders know what was in the report.
Apprehensive that some details might leak, the Senate voted unanimously to make Beveridge’s bill an amendment to the Agricultural Appropriations Bill. That gave food-industry advocates in the House the task of explaining why meat shipped across state lines should not be inspected and dated by federal agents.

James W. Wadsworth, Chairman of the House Committee on Agriculture, rose to the challenge with such determination that Roosevelt sent Congress the results of his probe on 8 June, warning, “My investigations are not yet through.” Wadsworth did not seem fazed even by an account of a hog carcass falling from its hook and sliding halfway into a packinghouse men’s room, whence it was retrieved and sent on to its destination, unwashed.

Again, Roosevelt saw a need for compromise. The Congressman was a stockbreeder and as fanatically opposed to regulation of his industry as Foraker was on behalf of the railroads. Beveridge was ordered to sacrifice can-dating (which Wadsworth believed would hinder sales) in exchange for the more important principle of mandatory inspection. Again, a majority in favor materialized, and the principle moved toward passage.

On 8 June, the President signed into law “An Act for the Preservation of American Antiquities,” the first of an accelerating series of measures deriving from his Fifth Message. It empowered him to proclaim national monuments
and historic and prehistoric sites on federal ground, without resort to Congress. Then came twin measures establishing the liability of federal agencies and common carriers for negligence-caused job accidents.
A pleasedly firm presidential signature, inscribed with an eagle quill, granted Oklahoma statehood. The last two days of the month, and of the session, brought protection for Niagara Falls from hydroelectric despoilment, immunity for witnesses in antitrust cases, stricter standards for alien naturalization, a lock system for the Panama Canal, and the three major laws Roosevelt most wanted: the Railroad Rate Regulation Act on the twenty-ninth, and the Meat Inspection and Pure Food and Drug Acts on the thirtieth.