Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [124]
Subsequent articles revealed that the name Rockefeller had appeared on only two of Standard Oil’s germane telegrams, and that it was in any case qualified by the abbreviation Jr. This did not save Rockefeller Senior from being accused of “the most brazen attempt in the history of lobbying.”
The old tycoon maintained a hurt silence. When the Department of Commerce and Labor Bill got to the Senate, it was approved in thirty seconds flat.
ON 8 FEBRUARY, Woodrow Wilson, the president of Princeton, got a big laugh explaining to a meeting of alumni why this year’s groundhog had returned to its burrow. It was afraid that Theodore Roosevelt would put a “coon” in.
“JUST AT PRESENT,” Roosevelt wrote his eldest son, “Congress is doing most of the things I wish.”
For the first time since becoming President, he felt real political momentum. In response to his urgent demands, echoed by the General Board of the Navy, the House initiated legislation for four new battleships and two armored cruisers, while the Senate rewarded Elihu Root’s long struggle for an Army General Staff. By agreement with Great Britain, Roosevelt and King Edward VII were each empowered to appoint three “impartial jurists of repute” to negotiate the Alaskan boundary dispute. Favorable action on the Panama Canal Treaty was promised—as soon as Senator Morgan stopped filibustering it.
Roosevelt did not like the sound of that filibuster, and he was wary of corresponding tactics to delay the Cuban Reciprocity Treaty through the end of the session. Knowing that his legislative luck might not last, he worked around the clock without intermission, lobbying even as he ate.
On Saturday, 14 February, the Commerce and Labor Act arrived on his desk. He signed it with two pens, one of which went to the man he had decided to appoint as Secretary of the new Department: George Cortelyou. The other pen went to George Perkins of J. P. Morgan and Company. Evidently, Roosevelt expected the future relations of government and business to be amicable rather than antagonistic.
As a final cadence to these resolving harmonies, news came before night-fall that Herbert Bowen and his fellow negotiants at the Venezuela conference had agreed on a protocol to be submitted to The Hague. The last foreign battleships were steaming out of the Western Hemisphere.
THE NEXT MORNING’S newspapers proclaimed the double achievement: BLOCKADE ORDERED RAISED and THE PRESIDENT’S ANTITRUST PROGRAM COMPLETED.
Roosevelt let the first news story speak for itself. He was reluctant to draw personal attention to Wilhelm II’s large-bottomed retreat: “It always pays for a nation to be a gentleman.” About the second he was oddly defensive, fearing that it might not look like much of a triumph to readers studying the details. How were they to know he had had “a regular stand-up fight” with Senators Hanna and Aldrich before getting any trust legislation at all?
It was a fact, though, that he had negotiated only a modest, discretionary program. The powers invested in him had more to do with publicity than direct discipline. To forestall any radical discontent, he decided to issue a victory statement through the Attorney General’s office, emphasizing the cooperative nature of his plan. J. P. Morgan and George Perkins happened to be in town, so he summoned them to the White House after dark, along with Aldrich and Hanna.
Soon Aldrich was on his way to Knox’s house with scribbled instructions from the President: “Say what has been done: practically substantially everything asked for.… Not only has a long stride in advance been taken; not only have all the promises of last fall been made good, but Congress has now enacted all that is practicable and all that is desirable to do.” It was unclear whether these sentiments were those of sender or bearer, but Knox duly announced that the legislation just passed by Congress was “highly gratifying” to the Administration, and represented the concerted