Great Heart The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt 20

Great Heart The Life Story of Theodore Roosevelt 20

The President let it be known early in his administration that in

the South he would appoint good Democrats to office rather than bad

Republicans.

 

It was while the President was making appointments of Democrats to

office in the South, winning praise from those who had never before

praised anything Republican, that the famous Booker T. Washington

incident took place.

 

It had been through the help of the South that Washington had been able

to accomplish his great work as a negro educator, but this section

of the country, with the negro as a social problem very close to it,

bitterly resented Roosevelt’s dining with the colored man.

 

The South took it as an affront, though evidently the President had

not thought one way or the other as to the possible consequences. The

criticisms heaped upon him he ignored.

 

Roosevelt did not long remain in the bad graces of the Southern

people. He did not permit the South to forget that his mother was a

Georgian woman, and that her brothers had fought in the Confederacy.

The following incident illustrates the fine diplomacy with which he won

back the regard of the Southern people:

 

On one of his Southern trips his train stopped at Charlotte. N. C. A

committee of women led by Mrs. Thomas J. Jackson, widow of General

Stonewall Jackson, was at the depot to meet Colonel Roosevelt. When he

was introduced he referred to himself as by right a Southerner, and

then being introduced to Mrs. Jackson, he added a remark which flashed

through the South:

 

“What! The widow of the great Stonewall Jackson? Why, it is worth the

whole trip down here to have a chance to shake your hand,” and he

reminded her that he had appointed her grandson to a cadetship at West

Point.

 

The South loved a fighter, and Roosevelt put his knowledge of this fact

to good use when he went on a campaigning tour of that territory. If

there had been anything timorous about him he would have attacked the

Democracy in Minnesota, where it would be safe to do so. Instead, he

picked out Atlanta, where his audience was composed almost entirely of

Democrats.

 

The audience tried to roar him down. For five minutes the tumult went

on. It seemed as if the meeting could not go on. Roosevelt then made a

characteristically audacious move. There was a table near him, and he

leaped upon it. The mob was startled into stillness. Before it could

recover from its surprise, he had poured forth a half-dozen striking

sentences, and by that time his opponents were interested enough to

give him a hearing.

 

 

A FRANK CANDIDATE

 

From the date of his entering the Presidency until after the election

of 1904 Roosevelt was under restraint. Although he knew that his

policies had the full approval of the people, he felt himself to be a

President by accident. It is well known that he desired a nomination

and election in 1904.

 

“I do not believe in playing the hypocrite,” he said. “Any strong

man fit to be President would desire a nomination and re-election

after his first term. Lincoln was President in so great a crisis that

perhaps he neither could nor did feel any personal interest in his

own re-election. But at present I should like to be elected President

just as John Quincy Adams, or McKinley, or Cleveland, or John Adams,

or Washington himself desired to be elected. It is pleasant to think

that one’s countrymen think well of him. But I shall not do anything

whatever to secure my nomination save to try to carry on the public

business in such shape that decent citizens will believe I have shown

wisdom, integrity and courage.”

 

From the start his nomination was assured, although there was already

strong opposition to him on the part of many machine politicians.

 

No other name than his was seriously considered in the convention. He

was nominated for the Presidency at Chicago on June 23, with Charles W.

Fairbanks, of Indiana, as candidate for Vice-President. He was elected

in November by a popular vote of 2,523,750 over Alton B. Parker, the

Democratic candidate, and a majority over all candidates of 1,735,403.

The vote in the electoral college was 336 for Roosevelt to 140 for

Parker.

 

It was the largest popular support that any President of the United

States had ever received.

 

 

BUILDING THE PANAMA CANAL

 

In foreign affairs the most important action Roosevelt took during the

second administration was in regard to the building of the Panama

Canal. His action is still termed “unconstitutional” by many people,

and a bill is now under discussion to compensate Colombia for the

alleged damages she sustained through the secession of the State of

Panama, and the building of the canal without her consent.

 

Roosevelt’s defense, and the defense of his eminent Secretary of State,

John Hay, was, to put it bluntly, “We got the canal.”

 

During the four centuries that had passed since Balboa crossed the

Isthmus, statesmen had talked of connecting the Atlantic and Pacific

oceans by an Isthmus canal. It had been talked about in Washington for

a half-century, but nothing had come of it.

 

Shortly after Roosevelt became President, an agreement was reached with

the French Panama Company, and the Hay-Pauncefote Treaty was signed,

by which the United States acquired possession, so far as Europe was

concerned, which warranted her undertaking the task.

 

The logical location for the canal was the line already begun by the

French company in Panama. Panama belonged to Colombia. Colombia had

promised friendly co-operation. Her delegate to the Pan-American

Congress in Mexico had joined in the unanimous vote which requested

the United States to proceed with building the canal.

 

Both Colombia and the Isthmus had been places of frequent revolutions

and outbreaks. Many times United States warships had been forced to

patrol the Isthmus, at times at the urgent request of the Colombian

government. Through another revolution Colombia had come under the

dictatorship of Marquin, its former vice-president. Marquin, although

he had consented to the Hay-Herran Treaty, by which Colombia had agreed

to the building of the canal, now made use of his power as a dictator

to break his promise. He summoned a congress especially to break the

canal treaty. This congress, which Roosevelt describes as “a congress

of mere puppets,” carried out Marquin’s wishes. The treaty was rejected.

 

The President, through Secretary Hay, had warned Colombia that

grave consequences might follow her rejection of the treaty. He had

information that the entire population of Panama felt that it was of

vital concern to their prosperity that the canal be immediately built;

newspaper correspondents predicted a revolution on the Isthmus.

 

On November 8, 1903, the revolution occurred. The Colombian troops

stationed on the Isthmus joined in the revolution, and there was no

bloodshed, except the life of an unfortunate Chinaman.

 

Roosevelt immediately recognized the Republic of Panama and the other

principal nations did likewise. A canal treaty was at once negotiated

with the new republic, and, after considerable debate in the Senate,

the treaty was ratified by that body and the work on the canal began.

 

Roosevelt’s case against Colombia was that, so long as the United

States was considering the alternative route through Nicaragua,

Colombia eagerly pressed this country to build a canal across the

Isthmus. When the United States was committed to this latter course,

Colombia, under her usurper, refused to fulfil the agreement, with the

hope of securing the rights and property of the French Panama Company,

so as to secure the $40,000,000 the United States had authorized as

payment to this company. John Hay thus defended Roosevelt’s course:

“The action of the President in the Panama matter is not only in the

strictest accordance with the principles of justice and equity, and in

line with the best precedents of our public policy, but it was the only

course he could have taken in compliance with our treaty rights and

obligations.”

 

In November, 1906, the President’s interest in the work on the

canal led him to go in person to Panama. This act caused a storm of

disapproval in certain quarters, similar to that which President

Wilson met when he decided to attend the peace conference at Paris.

Roosevelt’s critics pointed out that no President had ever gone beyond

the bounds of his country. Roosevelt went and let his critics howl.

Here, in one thing at least, Wilson and Roosevelt were in agreement,

namely, that where the President of this country sets foot that place

is within the sphere of the United States.

 

 

 

 

XIII

 

Good Will Abroad; A Square Deal at Home

 

 

In Roosevelt’s opinion and in the opinion of the entire country, his

act in sending the fleet upon its world mission did more to favorably

advertise the United States to the world and to establish cordial

international relations, than any other of his deeds as President.

His object in sending the battle fleet on this voyage was to prove

to foreign nations that American battleships could be assembled in

the Pacific Ocean as well as in the Atlantic, without this movement

assuming the nature of a threat against any Asiatic or European power.

 

The impression prevailed among foreign navies that the American fleet

could not pass from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The English and German

naval authorities thought it impossible to take their own fleets of

great battleships around the world, and, of course, they did not

believe that the American fleet could make the voyage.

 

Then, too, Europe was expecting a war between the United States and

Japan and thought that if such a fleet sailed into the Pacific, Japan

would think that the United States intended to attack her. Roosevelt

desired to clear up all of these notions. He wanted to establish

friendly relations with Japan and he wanted more than anything else to

arouse the pride of the American people in their navy.