My only complaint about Doris Kearns
Goodwin's new book, The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William
Howard Taft and the Golden Age of Journalism, is that it ends too
soon. That's saying a lot for a 900 page book! But I'd have been
happy for it to go on in great detail instead of wrapping up the
lives of the major figures relatively quickly after the election of
1912
Goodwin has made a career about writing
about American Presidents in the context of the people and ideas of
their own time: FDR and Eleanor Roosevelt and the homefront in WWII,
Lincoln and his “team of rivals” and now the earlier Roosevelt
and William Howard Taft as well as S. S. McClure, his magazine and
the journalists who would become known as the “muckrackers”
(originally a perjorative term used by Roosevelt himself but later a
badge of honor for the first and maybe the greatest investigative
journalists: Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens and
William Allen White).
I was completely engaged by this book
which is not a full biography of either President, though at the
beginning Goodwin reviews their early lives and that of their wives,
but by the end—which is really when the two ex-Presidents made up
their quarrel after the explosive and nasty presidential campaign of
1912 where Taft, the sitting President ran for the Republicans, the
progressive Wilson (maybe the next President I want to read a bit
about) ran for the Democrats, and Teddy Roosevelt ran for a new
Progressive Party which he founded—I wanted more. The “bully
pulpit” story was over but I'd have listened to more than a single
chapter wrapping up the lives of all the characters. (Indeed a whole
other book has been written about Roosevelt's trip to The River of
Doubt in search of the source of the Amazon.)
The title is significant because
Roosevelt was the President who first used his office as a pulpit to
raise and “preach” about issues of fairness and concern for all
citizens. And “bully” of course was his signature comment on
anything he liked. He wanted to break the power of the party bosses
and institute popular primaries in all states and to control the
power of monopolies like Standard Oil which were controlling their
own costs by deals which left small business and the general public
at a distinct disadvantage. Enter Ida Tarbell, a remarkable woman,
now remembered primarily for her exhaustive study of how Standard Oil
controlled the railroads and of course the price of oil. Born in
Pittsburgh, with a father who worked in the industry, she made it her
life's work to investigate and write about how big corporations used
their power and influence to disadvantage everyone else. She was a
talented writer who could tackle any subject, including a biography
of Napoleon which McClure wanted.
She and her colleagues became allies of
Roosevelt, first as governor of New York and later as President as he
worked to control the power of corporations, even at the considerable
risk of alienating fellow Republicans.
The Republican Party was the source of
“progressive-ism” (which I theorize got passed to the Democrats
maybe about the time of Wilson who defeated both Roosevelt and Taft
in 1912 with a pretty progressive platform).
Taft was a president I knew practically
nothing about: he was so fat he wouldn’t fit into the White House
bathtub and his son, Robert Taft, was a presidential contender when I
was a child and first paid attention to politics. In reality, Taft,
who grew up in Cincinnati, was a very interesting man, likeable,
hardworking, effective, and congenial. He trained as a lawyer and was
100% dedicated to the law, including how to use the law to benefit
the people and predatory corporations. He had a successful legal
career, was appointed to the Federal Bench for his district and
eventually came to Washington to work in the Attorney General's
office. That's when he met and became very close friends with
Theodore Roosevelt who had similar political beliefs and aspirations.
Taft was an exceedingly nice person
probably too nice Goodwin and many others before her have concluded,
to be President. And he never wanted to become President. He was
smart and ambitious, but his goal was the Supreme Court, not the
White House and in the end that's where he ended up as a very
successful Chief Justice, after a rather unsuccessful presidency. And
he quarreled seriously with Roosevelt, or rather Roosevelt quarreled
with him. Taft was not a contentious person.
Roosevelt and Taft and SS McClure and
the journalists on his magazine shared a set of common beliefs: the
need to provide protection and benefits for all citizens, including
the working people and the concomitant need to control corporations
on behalf of all the people. Goodwin tells their story brilliantly.
The book is a biography of all seven, the two presidents and McClure
and his four main investigative journalists, how they worked for each
other and sometimes against each other, how the journalists
communicated with and aided the President on significant issues that
paved the way for important legislation in their own time and later:
lowering tariffs, controlling corporations, instituting an income tax
and eventually providing what we call today a safety net for all
citizens.
It's a timely subject with the
Republican party, at least its progressive wing, supporting many of
the issues we associate with the Democratic party today and with the
progressive Republicans working against their conservative wing, even
to the extent of splitting the party and creating a third party. Had
it been anyone other than Teddy Roosevelt who was not really
interested in a party per se but in getting elected so he could
continue his work, that third party might have been successful. It
was joined by many of those who felt disaffected by the current
establishment, including among others those agitating for women's
sufferage.... But Roosevelt was virtually out of control and though
his causes were worthy ones and he attracted many followers, he was,
in this compaign, mostly bombast and rhetoric (his slogan was “We
stand at Armageddon, and we battle for the Lord.”) He did nothing
but use the “bully pulpit” and when he failed, the party did. But
that's another story....