Perhaps no President has had a policy, with regard to labor, so wise and far-seeing as that of Roosevelt. Invariably he sought the counsel of labor leaders in matters affecting their interests, and always they were made to feel that redress for their just grievances, and their rights generally, were as much a concern of his and of his administration as any rights of the rich. In this connection I recall a remark of P. H. Morrissey, then head of the railroad train-men. We were seated in the Red Room of the White House for conference after dinner. There were present some thirty or more men prominently identified with labor, whom the President had invited to discuss labor legislation. Morrissey recalled one time several years before when he sat in front of the great fireplace in the Red Room waiting for the President; and he said he could not help reflecting what a long way it was from the cab of the locomotive engine to this stately room in the official residence of the President of the United States, an honor and a privilege that Roosevelt was the first President to give to men of labor.
On the same evening I saw in clear relief Roosevelt's wonderful tact, judgment, and understanding of men as I had never seen it displayed before. One or two of the labor leaders showed some bitterness in their criticism of certain legislation. Roosevelt showed frank approval of just complaints and allayed irritation in a most tactful way where the demand was unjust or unreasonable.
In the election of 1904 I took an active part and kept in close touch with Roosevelt. An unusual amount of bitterness characterized this campaign, though it was foreseen that Roosevelt would win by a large majority. In this connection I received a characteristic letter from him, dated at the White House October 15th:
I notice that various Democratic papers, including the Evening Post, have endeavored to show that I have appealed to the Jew vote, the Catholic vote, etc. Now the fact is that I have not appealed to any man as Jew, as Protestant, or as Catholic, but that I have as strongly as in me lies endeavored to make it evident that each is to have a square deal, no more and no less, without regard to his creed. I hope that this country will continue in substantially its present form of government for many centuries. If this is so it is reasonable to suppose that during that time there will be Presidents of Jewish faith, Presidents of Catholic faith. Now, my aim as President is to behave toward the Jew and the Catholic just as I should wish a Jewish or Catholic President to behave towards Protestants—in other words, to behave as a good American should behave toward all his fellow Americans, without regard to the several creeds they profess or the several lands from which their ancestors have sprung. Moreover, I am pleased at what Lebowich says at my not having a spirit of condescension or patronizing. I have enough of the old Adam in me to object almost as strongly to being patronized as to being wronged; and I do not intend knowingly to behave toward others in a manner which I should resent if it were adopted toward me.
These sentences bring to mind another and public statement of Roosevelt's in which he characterized Americanism; the occasion was an address at the unveiling of the Sheridan equestrian statue in Washington:
We should keep steadily before our minds the fact that Americanism is a question of principle, of purpose, of idealism, of character; that it is not a matter of birthplace, or creed, or line of descent.
Here in this country the representatives of many old-world races are being fused together into a new type, a type the main features of which are already determined, and were determined at the time of the Revolutionary War; for the crucible in which all the new types are melted into one was shaped from 1776 to 1789, and our nationality was definitely fixed in all its essentials by the men of Washington's day.
Soon after the election he invited me to come to the White House for dinner one evening and to spend the night; there were a number of things he wanted to talk over with me. When I arrived I found Dr. Lyman Abbott and his son Ernest had been similarly invited, and there were additional guests for dinner: Attorney-General Moody, Senator Knox, Secretary of War Taft, and James R. Garfield, chief of the Bureau of Corporations in the Department of Commerce and Labor.
At dinner the President announced that we had come together to do some business, and he produced from his pocket a slip of paper on which were noted the several subjects he wished to consider with us, mainly things to be incorporated in his forthcoming Message to Congress. First there was the negro question. The South had vilified him because he entertained Booker Washington and appointed Crum Collector of the Port at Charleston. When Congress assembled, one of the things he intended doing was to send in again the name of Crum for confirmation. "The Southerners either do not or do not wish to understand it," he said; adding that his position plainly was that he would do everything in his power for the white man South without, however, doing a wrong or an injustice to the colored man. He was sympathetic with the South, for he was half Southerner himself, his mother having come from Roswell, Georgia. His remarks on this topic were directed mainly to Dr. Abbott.
The conversation then turned to the recent election and became very general, every one joining and relating instances or experiences in connection with it. Mr. Taft, who had waged a vigorous campaign for the Administration, told a joke on himself: he had received a letter from Wayne MacVeagh saying that so far as he (MacVeagh) could see, Taft's speeches did not do any harm.