Contemporary American History, 1877-1913

by Charles A. Beard

That the conservative interests looked to the Republican party, if not to Mr. Roosevelt, for the preservation of good order in politics and the prevention of radical legislation, is shown by the campaign contributions on the part of those who had earlier financed Mr. Hanna. In 1907 a letter from the railroad magnate, Mr. E. H. Harriman, was made public, in which the writer declared that Mr. Roosevelt had invited him to Washington in the autumn of 1904, just before the election, that at the President's request he had raised $250,000 to help carry New York state, and that he had paid the money over to the Republican treasurer, Mr. Bliss. Mr. Roosevelt indignantly denied that he had requested Mr. Harriman to raise a dollar for "the Presidential campaign of 1904." It will be noted that Mr. Roosevelt here made a distinction between the state and national campaign. This distinction he again drew during the United States Senate investigation in 1912, when it became apparent that the Standard Oil Trust had made a large contribution to the Republican politicians in 1904. From his testimony, it would appear that Mr. Roosevelt was unaware of the economic forces which carried him to victory in 1904. Indeed, from the election returns, he was justified in regarding his victory as a foregone conclusion, even if the financiers of the party had not taken such extensive precautions.

The election returns in 1904 showed that the Democratic candidate had failed to engage the enthusiasm of his party, for the vote cast for him was more than a million and a quarter short of that cast for Mr. Bryan in 1900. The personal popularity of Mr. Roosevelt was fully evidenced in the electoral and popular votes. Of the former he secured 336 against 140 cast for his opponent, and of the latter he polled nearly 400,000 more than Mr. McKinley. Nevertheless the total vote throughout the country was nearly half a million under that of 1900, showing an undoubted apathy or a dissatisfaction with the two old parties. This dissatisfaction was further demonstrated in a startling way by the heavy increase in the socialist ranks, a jump from about 95,000 in 1900 to more than 400,000.

The Achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's Administrations

Doubtless the most significant of all the laws enacted during Mr. Roosevelt's administrations was the Hepburn Act passed in 1906. This law increased the number of the Interstate Commerce Commission[62] to seven, extended the law to cover pipe lines, express companies, and sleeping car companies, and bridges, ferries, and railway terminals. It gave the Interstate Commerce Commission the power to reduce a rate found to be unreasonable or discriminatory in cases in which complaints were filed by shippers adversely affected; it abolished "midnight tariffs" under which favored shippers had been given special rates, by requiring proper notice of all changes in schedules; and it forbade common carriers to engage in the transportation of commodities owned by themselves, except for their own proper uses.

The Hepburn bill, however, did not confer upon the Interstate Commerce Commission that power over rates which the Commission had long been urging as necessary to give shippers the relief they expected. Senator La Follette, fresh from a fight with the railways in Wisconsin, proposed several radical amendments in the Senate, and endeavored without avail to secure the open support of President Roosevelt.[63] The Senator insisted that it would be possible under the Hepburn bill "for the commission to determine whether rates were relatively reasonable, but not that they were reasonable per se; that one rate could be compared with another, but that the Commission had no means of determining whether either rate so compared was itself a reasonable rate." No one can tell, urged the Senator, whether a rate is reasonable until the railway in question has been evaluated. This point he pressed with great insistence, and though defeated at the time, he had the consolation of having the principle of physical valuation enacted into law in 1913.[64] At all events, the railways found little or no fault with the Hepburn law, and shortly afterward began to raise their rates in the face of strong opposition from shippers.

Two laws relative to foodstuffs, the meat inspection act and the pure food act, were passed in 1906 in response to the popular demand for protection against diseased meats and deleterious foods and drugs—a demand created largely by the revelation of shocking conditions in the Chicago stockyards and of nefarious practices on the part of a large number of manufacturers. The first of the measures was intended to guarantee that the meat shipped in interstate commerce should be derived from animals which were sound at the time of slaughter, prepared under sanitary conditions in the packing houses, and adequately inspected by Federal employees. The second measure covered foods and drugs, and provided that such articles "must not contain any injurious or deleterious drug, chemical or preservative, and that the label on each package must state the exact facts and not be misleading or false in any particular." The effect of the last of these measures was felt in the extinction of a large number of patent medicine and other quasi-fraudulent concerns engaged in interstate trade.

The social legislation enacted during Mr. Roosevelt's administrations is not very extensive, although it was accompanied by much discussion at the time. The most significant piece of labor legislation was the employers' liability law enacted in 1906, which imposed a liability upon common carriers engaged in interstate commerce for injuries sustained by employees in their service. On January 6, 1908, the Supreme Court declared the act unconstitutional on the ground that it interblended the exercise of legitimate powers over interstate commerce and interference with matters outside the scope of such commerce. The act was again taken up in Congress, and in April of that year a second law, omitting the objectionable features pointed out by the Court, was enacted.

A second piece of Federal legislation which is commonly called a labor measure was the law which went into effect on March 4, 1908, limiting the hours of railway employees engaged as trainmen or telegraph operators. As a matter of fact, however, it was not so much the long hours of trainmen which disturbed Congress as the appalling number of railway disasters from which the traveling public suffered. At least it was so stated by the Republican leaders in their campaign of 1908, for they then declared that "although the great object of the Act is to promote the safety of travellers upon railroads, by limiting the hours of service of employees within reasonable bounds, it is none the less true that in actual operation it enforces humane and considerate treatment to employees as well as greater safety to the public."[65]

That public policy with which Mr. Roosevelt's administrations will be most closely associated is unquestionably the conservation of natural resources. It is true that he did not originate it or secure the enactment of any significant legislation on the subject. The matter had been taken up in Congress and out as early as Mr. Cleveland's first administration, and the first important law on conservation was the act of March 3, 1891, which authorized the President to reserve permanently as forest lands such areas as he deemed expedient. Under this law successive Presidents withdrew from entry enormous areas of forest lands. This beginning Mr. Roosevelt enlarged, and by his messages and speeches, he brought before the country in an impressive and enduring manner the urgent necessity of abandoning the old policy of drift and of withholding from the clutches of grasping corporations the meager domain still left to the people. Without inquiring into what may be the wisest final policy in the matter of our natural resources, all citizens will doubtless agree that Mr. Roosevelt's service in this cause was valuable beyond calculation.

Among the proudest achievements of Mr. Roosevelt's administration was the beginning of the actual construction of the Panama Canal. A short route between the two oceans had long been considered by the leading commercial nations of the world. In 1850, by the Clayton-Bulwer treaty, the United States and Great Britain had agreed upon the construction of a canal by a private corporation, under the supervision of the two countries and other states, which might join the combination, on a basis of neutralization. The complete failure of the French company organized by De Lesseps, the hero of the Suez Canal, discouraged all practical attempts for a time, but the naval advantages of such a waterway was forced upon public attention in a dramatic manner during the Spanish War when the battleship Oregon made her historical voyage around the Horn.[66]