The Sherman Anti-Trust Law was a dead letter until Mr. Roosevelt instructed the Attorney-General to prosecute its violators, both great and small. No fear or favor was shown in the enforcement of the laws against the rich and poor alike. There were many other notable features of his administration, but that, to my mind, stands out conspicuously before all the others. By his speeches, by his public messages, he awakened the slumbering conscience of the Nation, and he made the violators of the law in high places come to realize that they would receive the same punishment as the lowest offenders. He did more than any of his predecessors to prevent this country from drifting into socialism.
I have known Colonel Roosevelt for many years. I knew him as Civil Service Commissioner under President Harrison. In that position, as in every other public office he held, he saw to it that the law was strictly enforced. I once wrote him a note, when he was Civil Service Commissioner, requesting him to act favorably on some matter, which he considered was contrary to his duty. He promptly returned this characteristic reply: "You have no right to ask me to do this, and I have no right to do it."
As Assistant Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley, he was able, aggressive, and pushing in preparing the Navy for the Spanish-American War. He seemed so interested in what he was doing that he would appear to an outsider to be nervous and excitable. My old friend, the Hon. W. I. Guffin, than whom there was no better man, was visiting the Department with me one day, and I took occasion to introduce him to Colonel Roosevelt, who was then Assistant Secretary. Guffin was astonished at Roosevelt's manners and his way of speaking, and I recall Guffin's remark when we left the office. I was very much amused at it. He said: "Well, that is Roosevelt, is it! He is one hell of a Secretary." Doubtless that was the impression that Colonel Roosevelt left on many people whom he met in the Navy Department, who did not know him and who had not yet come to know the degree of promptness and ability with which he despatched public business.
I was at the Philadelphia Convention which nominated Colonel Roosevelt for Vice-President. I know that he did not desire the nomination, but it was thrust on him through the manipulation of Senator T. C. Platt, of New York, then the acknowledged "easy boss" of that State. Platt himself said afterwards that he did it to get rid of him as Governor of New York, and that he regretted it every day of his life after Roosevelt became President. The politicians of New York did not want Roosevelt in control at Albany, and they thought it would be an admirable plan to remove him from the State, and eventually relegate him to private life—to nominate him for Vice-President. But the fates willed differently, and the nomination for Vice-President opened the way for him to become Mr. McKinley's successor, in which position he made such a splendid record that no one thought of opposing him for the nomination for President in 1904.
As President, Colonel Roosevelt was not popular with Senators generally. Personally, I got along with him very well. In all the years that he was President, I do not think he ever declined to grant any favor that I asked of him, with one exception. In that case, while he declined to give a very distinguished gentleman in Illinois a position, for which I thought him admirably qualified, and for which I was urging him, he later tendered him another office, which my friend declined to accept. His methods of transacting business were far more expeditious than those of any of his predecessors. President McKinley, in every case, insisted on Senators placing in writing their recommendations for Federal offices; I do not think he ever made an appointment without such written endorsements; but Colonel Roosevelt never bothered much about written endorsements. He would either do or not do what you asked, and would decide the question promptly.
He took a deep interest in the passage of the necessary amendments to the Interstate Commerce Act, and as I have said elsewhere, had it not been for Colonel Roosevelt, the Hepburn Bill would not have been passed. He thought that I could be of very great service in securing the passage of the amendments which both he and I deemed necessary to the Interstate Commerce Act, by remaining chairman of the Senate's Committee on Interstate Commerce, and when the time came for me to decide whether I should remain chairman of that committee, or accept the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations, he took occasion personally to urge me to remain at the head of the Interstate Commerce Committee. But at the time the personnel of the committee was such that I had despaired of securing favorable action in the committee on an amended Interstate Commerce Act, and I retired to accept the chairmanship of the Committee on Foreign Relations.
Colonel Roosevelt has proven over and over again, in every position he has occupied, from Police Commissioner of New York to the Presidency itself, that he is a marvellous man, a man of great resources, great intellect, great energy and courage, and a man of the highest degree of integrity. He will go down in the history of this country as the most remarkable man of his day.
The Hon. John Hay, at the urgent request of Colonel Roosevelt, continued to act as Secretary of State (to which position he had been appointed by President McKinley) until his death in 1905. John Hay was the most accomplished diplomat, in my judgment, who ever occupied the high position of Secretary of State.
I knew him from his boyhood, and knew his father and all the members of his family. The Hon. Milton Hay, whom I have mentioned elsewhere, and who was my law partner, was an uncle of John Hay. John was a student in our law office in Springfield, and as a student of the law he showed marked intellectual capacity and grasp. It was from our law office that President Lincoln took him to act as one of his private secretaries when he left Springfield for Washington to be inaugurated as President of the United States, and Mr. Hay continued to act as such until the President's death. He abandoned the law as a profession and became finally the editor of The New York Tribune. I probably knew him more intimately than any one else in public life, and when Mr. McKinley became President I urged him to appoint Hay as Ambassador to Great Britain. He served in that position with great credit to himself and his country. He was very popular with the members of the British Government, and seemed to have more influence, and to be more able to accomplish important results, than any of his predecessors in that office. When it was rumored that there was to be a vacancy in the State Department, by the retirement of Mr. Day, who was ambitious to go on the Federal Bench, I wrote Mr. McKinley a letter, in which I told him that he could find no better man to succeed Mr. Day as Secretary than his Ambassador to Great Britain, John Hay. And he was appointed.
As Secretary of State, Mr. Hay was successful in carrying to a triumphant conclusion our Far Eastern diplomacy. For years the situation in the Far East, and especially in China, had been delicate and critical to an extreme. The acquisition of Hawaii and the Philippines gave to the United States an extraordinary interest in events occurring in the Orient. The United States stood for the "open door" in China; and as the result of the diplomacy and influence of Secretary Hay, freedom of commerce was secured, and the division of China among the powers has been prevented. In our relations with China, we have pursued a disinterested policy of disavowal of territorial aggrandizement, and a disposition to respect the rights of that Government, confining our interests to the peaceful development of trade. Secretary Hay never hesitated on all proper occasions to assert our influence to preserve its independence and prevent its dismemberment.