21 - Aim at barn, hit bullseye
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How Capitalists Rule/The Republocrats: Part 21
AIM AT BARN, HIT BULLSEYE
By Vince Copeland
In the 1904 election campaign, President Theodore Roosevelt gave instructions to his aides to soft-pedal his "trust-busting" and boast more about his achievements in foreign policy--that is, his imperialist takeovers and triumphs that would benefit U.S. capitalism as a whole, not just one corporation over another.
Elihu Root, Secretary of War, gave the keynote address at the Republican national convention in Chicago. Roosevelt instructed him to emphasize the Open Door in China, the administration of the Philippines, the "independence" of Cuba, the advances in U.S. forestry, the army, the navy and his enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine against England and the other imperialist rivals.
This evidently hit the bull's eye, because the Republican money men nearly all came through for Roosevelt.
Roosevelt may not have invented "progressivism," but he adapted himself completely to the mood of the majority of the people. He was so successful at this that the so-called "muckrakers," who really did expose some of Roosevelt's friends as much as anyone else, were often regarded and sometimes regarded themselves as together with TR in the same crusade against the big money.
But the very word "muckraker" was coined by Roosevelt himself as a putdown of the more militant writers who exposed political and corporate corruption at this time. He did this to chastise and slow these writers down, as even the most casual study of his words will show.
ROOSEVELT ON HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS
Here, for instance, is what he said as president in defense of the Senate, just at the time when a series of articles called "The Treason of the Senate" was appearing in the Hearst press.
"In Pilgrim's Progress," Roosevelt fulminated, "you may recall the description of the Man with the Muckrake, who could look no way but downward with the muckrake in his hand, who was offered a celestial crown for his muckrake, but who would neither look up nor regard the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the filth of the floor.
"In Pilgrim's Progress, the Man with the Muckrake is set forth as the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of on spiritual things. Yet he also signifies the man who in this life consistently fails to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing....
"If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of appetite against appetite, of a contest between the brutal greed of the `have-nots' and the brutal greed of the `haves,'then it has no significance for good, but only for evil. If it seeks to establish a line of cleavage, not along the line which distinguishes good men from bad, but along that other line, running at right angles thereto, which divides those that are well off from those who are less well off, then it will be fraught with immeasurable harm to the body politic....
"The eighth commandment reads `Thou shalt not steal.' It does not read `Thou shalt not steal from the rich man.' It does not read `Thou shalt not steal from the poor man.' ... No good whatever will come from that warped and mocked morality which denounces the misdeeds of men of wealth and forgets the misdeeds practiced at their expense~." And so on and so forth. (Quoted in an appendix to the book "Treason of the Senate," by David Graham Philips. This book was a compilation of the series of articles in the Hearst-owned Cosmopolitan magazine.)
DEFENDING CHAUNCEY DEPEW WITHOUT NAMING HIM
Roosevelt said this in 1906, right after Philips had attacked Chauncey Depew in one of the earlier articles. Depew was the Senator from New York State and represented the Morgan interests. Roosevelt did not mention Chauncey's name because of the latter's bad reputation, which was at its low point at this time. But his defense of the Morgan interests shines through his pastoral letter like a beam of holy light. The language is not so different from his youthful outbursts against women voting and slaves being too thoughtlessly emancipated.
Perhaps we have overemphasized Roosevelt's synthetic "progressivism" in order to clarify its connection with his imperialism. The fact is that he also advanced the art and possibly the science of government farther than it had been before. This diminished the real role of the big political parties as independent ruling bodies at the same time that it enhanced their activities and made them work harder.
It is perfectly true that no trusts were really broken during Roosevelt's reign and no regulations of big business were adopted that really hurt the existing giant corporations. Gabriel Kolko's "Triumph of Conservatism" proves again and again that the Rooseveltian regulations were in the interests of the biggest industrial combines and not against them. But even Kolko tends to downplay the more or less genuine aloofness that TR felt from the Wall Street crowd and the fact that while he was ultimately dependent upon the Morgans, he rather enjoyed taking them on.
At one point in a private dinner party at which J.P. Morgan was present, Roosevelt outlined some progressive steps he wanted to take and then walked over behind Morgan's chair, held his fist under Morgan's nose, and said, "And you won't stop us, either!" This was not calculated to make the great financier a bosom buddy of Theodore's.
HE MADE THE GOVERNMENT MORE EFFICIENT
Ferdinand Lundberg, who was well aware of Roosevelt's posturings and his failings, summed up his service to government in the following pithy manner:
"Roosevelt's outstanding contribution was that he made the government infinitely more efficient than it had ever been before. The civil service was extended, forest lands and water-power sites were reclaimed, irrigation projects were launched, and the Navy was made into an effective collector at foreign ports. The money spent to elect Roosevelt had brought not only special favors to the major contributors but had also given them the best government, from the standpoint of businesslike operation, they had ever had."("America's Sixty Families," p. 100)
But did the biggest money kings fully appreciate their enfant terrible? They, like other kings and queens, had a predilection for executing the messenger with the bad news and sometimes a lack of appreciation for the dentist who pulled out their rotten teeth. J.P. Morgan, at any rate, made sure that Roosevelt would never again be president, as we shall see in the election of 1912.
PRESIDENT MAKERS AND FIXERS
We have remarked on the power and presence of leading capitalists at the very heart and brain of the two big parties, particularly the role of William Whitney for the Democrats and Mark Hanna for the Republicans. But with the accession of Roosevelt in 1901, Hanna's power began to fade.
Another very big Wall Streeter had entered the picture by this time. That was George W. Perkins, a leading partner of J.P. Morgan, who resigned from his banking activities and busied himself almost exclusively with national politics. He became quite close to Roosevelt, but was influential with the Democrats, too.
Perkins was overshadowed, of course, by Roosevelt himself, who really played the role of the direct representative of the ruling class, even though he wasn't politically identical with that class. At least that was the situation during the actual years of Roosevelt's presidency. Perkins, however, did play the role of presidential adviser to Roosevelt and, after getting his confidence as a friend, in 1912 intervened in the election process (at the behest of J.P. Morgan) as well as the governing business to outmaneuver Roosevelt.
REFORMING THE U.S. SENATE
Roosevelt's duel with the radical "muckrakers," as he called them, took place in 1906. It put him on the wrong side in the popular campaign for a constitutional amendment allowing the electorate to vote directly for U.S. Senators. They were still at that time selected by the state legislatures. It took another seven years for the amendment to pass.
The people had tried to change this undemocratic procedure several times in the 19th century. The first resolution demanding a popular vote for the Senate was introduced in the House of Representatives in 1826. From then until 1915, 197 similar resolutions were presented. Six of these came to a vote and were passed by the necessary two-thirds majority in the House, but not in the Senate (in 1893, 1894, 1898, 1900, 1902 and 1911).
As it became a hot issue in the 1890s, the Peoples Party featured it in its platforms of 1892, 1906, 1900 and 1904. The Democratic Party and the Prohibition Party took it up in 1904. A California referendum passed such a motion by a vote of 14 to 1 in 1892. In Nevada it was 7 to 1 in 1893 and in Illinois 6 to 1 in 1902.
But of course, even after there was a popular election for this aristocratic body, the body still left much to be desired. Only a half dozen of the most corrupt Senators were retired and the six-year term guaranteed a big hangover of conservative time-servers.
Even the structure of the Senate is so flawed as to prevent anything like real popular representation from ever taking effect.
For example, there are two Senators from each state regardless of size. Little Delaware with 600,000 people today has two Senators; and California with a population of 30 million also has two. According to the most elementary principles of democracy and arithmetic, California should have 100 Senators if Delaware has two!
However, the phenomenon of the "insurgent" Senators appeared well before the popular-election amendment was passed. The best-known insurgent Senator was probably Albert Beveridge, Republican of Indiana, who was also the most vociferous supporter of imperialism, as we have shown in his panegyric to the U.S. conquest of the Philippines. He was somewhat more "sincere" about his "progressivism" than Roosevelt, and much less of a maneuverer. But his interesting duality about imperialism at the same time illustrates and accents our thesis about Roosevelt, although from another point of view.
Beveridge was a "typical" American chauvinist who was also a leader in the fight for the regulation of big business. He apparently thought he was fighting the good fight on both fronts.
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(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21 St., New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet: "workers@mcimail.com".)
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