Theodore Rex - Edmund Morris [56]
ROOSEVELT That is just what we did not want to do.
MORGAN If we have done anything wrong, send your man to my man and they can fix it up.
ROOSEVELT That can’t be done.
KNOX We don’t want to fix it up, we want to stop it.
MORGAN Are you going to attack my other interests, the Steel Trust and others?
ROOSEVELT Certainly not—unless we find out that in any case they have done something that we regard as wrong.
Alone with Knox later, Roosevelt mused, “That is a most illuminating illustration of the Wall Street point of view.” Morgan could think of the President of the United States only as “a big rival operator” with whom to cut a deal.
THE HOUSE OF MORGAN was reduced to pleading, in the weeks that followed, that its chairman be spared the indignity of public testimony. He was old; his honor was vital to the nation’s credit. Roosevelt asked Knox if it was necessary to include Morgan in the suit. “Well, Mr. President, if you direct me to leave his name out I will,” the Attorney General said. “But in that case I will not sign my name to the bill.”
Knox’s formal complaint, dated 10 March 1902, accordingly listed James J. Hill and J. Pierpont Morgan as defendants. E. H. Harriman, who stood to make more out of the merger than both principals, was granted technical anonymity as an “associate stockholder.” But Assistant Attorney General James M. Beck, assigned by Knox to brief the Eighth Circuit Court on the case, named Harriman as one of “the great triumvirate” seeking to impose upon the Northwest a monopoly “infinite in scope, perpetual in character.”
OF THE THREE DEFENDANTS, Hill was the angriest and most determined to fight all the way to the Supreme Court. Morgan and Harriman suggested a settlement, in order to protect their other interests. But Hill insisted on contesting the government’s suit. “There is nothing in the operation of the Northern Securities Company that violates the Sherman Law or the laws of any other state.” The two railroads named by Knox had been cooperating amicably for twenty years. Indeed, in regions where they could have competed, the Great Northern and Northern Pacific had charged mostly identical rates. Was this the “restraint of trade” Roosevelt sought to prosecute? Hill was damned if he was going to dismantle the world’s greatest transport combination because of “political adventurers who have never done anything but pose and draw a salary.”
Roosevelt’s action won support from both sides of the political field alike, as a much-needed check on the ramifications of U.S. v. E. C. Knight. Liberals welcomed a blow struck by authority against monopoly. Conservatives were confident that the Supreme Court would reaffirm that holding-company combinations were both legal and benign.
Roosevelt uttered no predictions and made no boasts. He accepted full responsibility for the suit, even excusing the original plaintiffs in Minnesota. “I am rather inclined to think it was as much a surprise to them as to anyone.” He was content, after seizing public attention, to let Northern Securities v. U.S. have due process. The case was unlikely to reach the Supreme Court before the winter term of 1903–1904; time enough for trumpeting then, if he won. Until another large matter arose to challenge his powers, he could return to routine presidential affairs.
He pretended to be bored by the state visit of Prince Heinrich of Prussia (“I shall take him out to ride in the rain—and I hope it will rain like hell!”), but obviously enjoyed playing host amid pomp and ceremony. Prince Heinrich was the brother of Kaiser Wilhelm II, and an admiral in the German Navy, so Roosevelt was able to pump him on European politics and naval affairs. When a providential downpour came, he was touched by the efforts of “the wretched creature” to gallop at full speed behind him. Heinrich was rewarded with the most elaborate stag dinner ever seen in Washington.