“Oh! we have got him sized up!” they would say, “he is for the labor unions against the capitalist!” and in a few months they would be puzzled again: “No; he is for Wall Street and he is down on the poor laboring man.”
For a long time they could not get it into their heads that he was for the honest man, whether laboring man or capitalist, and against the dishonest man, whether laboring man or capitalist.
“While I am President the doors of the White House will open as easily for the labor leader as for the capitalist,—and no easier.”[15]
[15] Hagedorn, p. 242.
Many Presidents might have said the first part of that sentence. Few of them would have added the last three words.
He annoyed many people in the South by inviting a very able and eminent Negro, Booker T. Washington, to eat luncheon with him. According to the curious way of thinking on this subject, Mr. Washington who had been good enough to eat dinner at the table of the Queen of England, was not good enough to eat at the White House. Shortly after being violently denounced for being too polite to a Negro, he was still more violently denounced for being too harsh to Negroes. He discharged from the Army some riotous and disorderly Negro soldiers. Persons with small natures had attacked him for showing courtesy to a distinguished man; other persons with equally small natures now attacked him for acting justly towards mutinous soldiers.
What did he do while he was President? What laws were passed by Congress, which he advocated or urged, and which he approved by his signature? Here are some of them as they are given by Mr. Washburn,[16] a Congressman of that time:
[16] Washburn, “Theodore Roosevelt,” p. 128.
The Elkins Anti-Rebate Law, to end unjust business dealings of the railroads.
The creation of the Department of Commerce and Labor.