Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [393]
6 THE JANUARY ISSUE Baker, American Chronicle, 168–69. McClure’s circulation in 1903 was 350,000. This issue achieved record sales.
7 “The Oil War” This article was the third in what eventually grew to be a nineteen-part series by Ida Tarbell.
8 “torrential journalism,” Eric F. Goldman, Rendezvous with Destiny: A History of Modern American Reform (New York, 1956), 134–35; Sullivan, Our Times, vol. 3, 133; TR, who knew both Baker and Steffens well, was sufficiently impressed by this issue of McClure’s to invite the two writers to visit him at Sagamore Hill in the summer of 1903. For his previous relations with them, see Baker, American Chronicle, and Steffens, Autobiography, passim. For his later response to the new journalism, see below, chap. 26.
9 “From now until” TR, Letters, vol. 3, 401. The next Congress was not due until Dec. 1903. Gould, Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 26–27, points out that by statute, the second and fourth congressional sessions of any presidential four-year term had to end on 4 March. Therefore, only the first and third sessions (when Congress could sit as long as it liked) were convenient to the production of major legislation. Even the third tended to be a cautious session, in view of the upcoming presidential election. Thus, a decision to postpone tariff or reciprocity action in 1902 meant that Congress was not likely to address them again before 1905.
10 The American economy Thorelli, Federal Antitrust Policy, 238–39. Sixty-three new trusts had been capitalized at more than seven figures in 1902.
11 He wanted three Claude Barfield, Jr., “Theodore Roosevelt and Congressional Leadership: Trust Legislation in 1903,” Organization of American Historians Convention, 1965 (Kansas City, Mo., 1965).
12 These requests Philander C. Knox to TR, 30 Mar. 1903 (PCK); 57 Cong., 2 sess., 1903, S. doc 73, serial 4422, 15–21; specifically, Littlefield’s bill gave the ICC, a semi-independent agency, subpoena powers to examine and publish the records of major companies.
13 some Rooseveltian ideas Thorelli, Federal Antitrust Policy, 239–41; Merrill, Republican Command, 142; Powers, Portraits of Half a Century, 174. TR was privately advised by Knox that the Littlefield bill would be unacceptable to big business and destructive of executive authority. (Philander Knox to TR, 5 Jan. 1903 [PCK]; Arthur M. Johnson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Bureau of Corporations,” Mississippi Valley Historical Review, Mar. 1959). On the evening of 5 Jan., TR called in John J. Jenkins, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, and practically dictated a bill comprising all his antitrust views. TR also took care to publish a summary of his own program in the newspapers. Whatever legislation was finally adopted would therefore seem to have been inspired by him. Jenkins to Philander Knox, 6 Jan. 1903 (PCK); The Washington Post, 7 Jan. 1903.
14 Corporations would not Johnson, “Theodore Roosevelt and the Bureau of Corporations”; David B. Sickels to TR, 19 Jan. 1903 (TRP). Beer was the father of Thomas Beer, whose impressionistic biography of Mark Hanna is cited frequently in these notes.
15 “He was jovial” William C. Beer to George W. Perkins, 15 Jan. 1903 (GWP).
16 JUSSERAND AND VON Except where otherwise indicated, documentary details in the following paragraphs come from the “Official Report on 1903 Diplomatic Reception,” supplemented with miscellaneous news clips (TAB).
17 “cosmic cynicism.” Adams, Letters, vol. 5, 319, 350.
18 One by one Wister, Roosevelt, 110.
19 Roosevelt’s strategy John Hay to TR, 21 Jan. 1903 (TRP).
20 The canal treaty Herrán had been expecting an ultimatum from TR for at least a month. On 10 Jan., the Colombian Foreign Ministry granted him what he took to be carte blanche to sign the treaty. DuVal, Cadiz to Cathay, 196, 200; Story of Panama, 270–71; Miner, Fight for the Panama Route, 194.
21 Downstairs, 1,800 Alice Roosevelt diary, 8 Jan. 1903 (ARL);