Roosevelt as President

The initiation of the Government's suit against the Northern Securities Company marked the beginning of a conflict between Roosevelt and the large financial interests which continued un abated throughout his administration and for years thereafter , until the outbreak of the World War (1914) brought a shift of issues and a truce. The business leaders were convinced that the President was a destroyer, and was shaking the foundations of the social structure and undermining the institution of private property. His objection, in regard to corporations, as he fre quently pointed out, was not to size but to wrongdoing. In swift succession, the President ordered suits brought against the United States Steel Corporation, the Standard Oil Company, the American Sugar Refining Company and other powerful combinations. Mean while, he inspired important legislation involving the regulation of railroads. The Elkins law (Feb. 19, 1903) forbade rebates; the Hepburn rate bill (June 29, 1906) granted the interstate commerce commission the right to fix railroad rates. A Pure Food bill, forbidding the manufacture, sale or transportation of adul terated foods, drugs, medicines and liquors, became law on June 3o, 1906; the following day another act, providing for the inspec tion of stockyards and packing-houses, was signed by the Presi dent. An Employers' Liability act was adopted. A department of commerce and labour, including a bureau of corporations, was established by congressional action on Feb. 14, 1903. President Roosevelt strengthened his position in reference to the excesses and transgressions of corporations by setting himself with equal firmness against the violence of labour agitation. He noted that the hunger for special privilege was not limited to the ranks of capital. He was by nature sympathetic to the labouring man and scrupulously fair to his interests, but struck at him fear lessly when he thought he was wrong, linking two advocates of violence in the ranks of labour on one occasion with a law-dodging railroad magnate, as "undesirable citizens." Conservation.—Early in his administration, with the purpose of breaking the strangle-hold of a small minority on the sources of wealth which should be open to the honest endeavours of all the people, the President—under the guidance of Gifford Pinchot embraced the policy of conservation. The established theory in regard to the national resources was that the general pros perity of the country could best be advanced by the develop ment of these resources by private capital, and upon this theory land was either given away or sold for a trifle. Under this policy, over wide areas, the timber-lands had been stripped bare with reckless waste; the control of the nation's water power had to a dangerous extent passed into private hands; and the public grazing lands and the wealth in minerals and oil in the public domain were bringing enormous dividends to a few, but no returns whatsoever to the people as a whole to whom these natural resources belonged.

Under Roosevelt's administration the area of the national forests was increased from 43 to 194 million acres, the water power resources of those areas were put under government con trol to prevent speculation and monopoly, and cattle-raisers grazing their herds on the reserves were forced to pay for what they got. In March 1907 Roosevelt created the Inland Water ways commission, and in May 1908 held a conference of State governors at the White House in behalf of conservation. As a result of this conference he appointed a national conservation commission to prepare an inventory, the first ever made for any nation, of all the natural resources within the territory of the United States. A joint Conservation Congress held in Dec. 1908

was followed by a North American Conservation conference in Feb. 1909. The movement for the reclamation of land either excessively or insufficiently watered was essentially a part of the effort in behalf of conservation. It received congressional sanc tion in the Reclamation Act (June 17, 1902) and achieved its most noteworthy result in the building of the Roosevelt dam in Arizona, which, by impounding the waters of the Salt river, turned a desert into one of the most fertile farming districts in the world. No policy of Roosevelt's administration excited deeper public interest or sharper opposition than his efforts in behalf of conservation. His official acts and the influence of his speeches and messages led to the adoption by both citizens and govern ment of a new theory regarding natural resources. It is that the Government, acting for the people who are the real owners of public property, shall permanently retain the fee in public lands, leaving their products to be developed by private capital under leases which are limited in their duration and which give the Government complete power to regulate the industrial operations of the lessees.

Re-election.

The popularity which Roosevelt enjoyed at the end of his first term found emphatic expression in the election of 1904. By the largest majority which, up to that time, had been accorded any candidate, Roosevelt was chosen to succeed himself in the White House, receiving 7,623,486 popular votes and 336 electoral votes, against 5,177,971 popular votes and 140 electoral votes cast for Alton B. Parker, the Democratic nominee.

Foreign

Policy.—Roosevelt's warfare with the forces pop ularly symbolized as "Wall Street" was punctuated at intervals during his administration by actions in the realm of international relations which greatly stimulated national pride. The President was brilliantly assisted in his conduct of foreign affairs, first by John Hay and then by Elihu Root, but he was in reality his own Secretary of State. His policy in regard to the army and navy was a highly important part of his foreign policy. He believed in the virtue of being ready as a preventive of war, pointing out the results of unpreparedness in the preface to his first book, The History of the Naval War of 1812 (1882), and urging an effective army and navy in many of his later writings. He increased greatly the general efficiency of the army. His pro motion of officers for merit in defiance of the rules of seniority and his order directing officers to demonstrate their ability to ride 90 m. in three successive days caused some criticism, especially in the more conservative element in the army. Roosevelt's services as Assistant Secretary of the Navy contributed vitally to the distinguished success of the American fleets during the Spanish War. As President he sought with great persistence to build up the navy's power and to make it as effective as possible, giving younger and more progressive officers the pres tige of his support in their struggles within the service. When in 1907 he sent the battleship fleet around the world—against the advice of experts in naval construction—he did so partly to call the attention of the great powers, notably Japan, to the fight ing strength of the United States, and partly to dramatize the navy and its needs to the American people. The voyage was brilliantly successful.