TR and Grandpa

My paternal grandfather once said Teddy Roosevelt was the only president he ever liked. Dad mentioned that bit of family lore to me but added he didn’t know why. It’s fun to parse through TR’s life to try and figure out why, mainly to satisfy my own curiosity. The years of his presidency, 1901-1909, fit well with Grandpa’s prime of life when he was 22-30 years of age.

Maybe grandpa was simply impressed as a young boy hearing stories of TR’s time in the North Dakota badlands when he stood up to threats from Marquis de Mores or later his time in Cuba when he led a charge up San Juan Hill. Or it could simply be he liked things that got done in the White House during Roosevelt’s tenure. Maybe this is the reason. And just what were some of those things?

One of my favorite history books is The Bully Pulpit by Doris Kearns Goodwin. She describes a period of history where many Americans sat up and took notice of the extraordinary events swirling about. Grandpa most likely heard or read about them with interest. Ms. Goodwin makes much of the dynamics between TR and William Howard Taft but adds a third element: muckrakers. They uncovered corrupt politicians, the work of robber barons, and the exploitation of workers by the corporations.

The well-read Roosevelt borrowed a term from The Pilgrim’s Progress and began calling these journalists muckrakers because he thought many had crossed lines of decency. He imagined them mucking and rooting about in the swill of domineering industrialists. The negative term stuck even as investigative writing continued. Some of their findings were so glaring, however, that he had to become involved and see that action was taken.

The Jungle by Upton Sinclair describes the muck he waded in and discovered in the meat packing industry where he worked undercover for a few weeks. He wrote of filthy conditions and practices that could spoil your appetite at supper time.

After the book was brought to TR’s attention he invited Sinclair to the White House. He told Sinclair he didn’t agree with his socialist philosophy but knew that if the reports of unsanitary conditions were accurate, they must be corrected. TR sent investigators who found them to be true, and then used their findings to convince Congress to pass the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Meat Inspection Act. In order to guarantee this legislation would be enacted, TR threatened Senate leaders who were friendly with the meat packers that he would expose them if they didn’t support the bills. I think Grandpa would have liked that.

It was under the umbrella of McClure’s Magazine where much muckraking writing was published. The magazine supported investigations that uncovered misdeeds which aroused the country to the point of making political and economic reforms. Take the reporting of Ida Tarbell, for instance. She developed a personal beef towards John D. Rockefeller’s business practices, especially those that destroyed small businesses, her father’s included.

In a nutshell, Tarbell’s father was doing well as a small independent oil producer in Pennsylvania. Then the greedy hands of John D. Rockefeller reached out and made an alliance with the railroads and a few select refiners. Rates for shipping their oil quickly doubled, but Rockefeller conspired to make secret rebate payments to the refineries. It succeeded in driving small producers out of business and for his company to become a monopoly.

Tarbell’s tenacious digging into Rockefeller’s business practices exposed him and resulted in the establishment of the Federal Trade Commission and the Clayton Antitrust Act. As a disclaimer Grandpa died when I was only five years old, so I didn’t know him well. But from what I know I believe he possessed a strong moral core and would have approved the breaking up of a monopoly.

Another of McClure’s writers was Lincoln Steffens. He wrote a series of articles for McClure’s that looked deeply into corruption in municipal government. Grandpa worked hard to make a living for his family and would not have approved of crooked officials.

Ray Stannard Baker earned headlines with his reporting about America’s racial divide and wrote of the oppression and lynching of Southern blacks. A recent popular history These Truths by Jill Lepore displayed a picture of a black man hanging from a tree with a caption “one of thousands of black men lynched during the Jim Crow era.”

Too many other muckraking scenarios exist for inclusion here except for an abbreviated mention of a few. Edwin Markham and John Spargo exposed child labor. Frank Norris examined the struggle of wheat farmers against a powerful railroad monopoly. Nellie Bly got herself committed to an insane asylum to expose the horrible conditions in it. Samuel Hopkins Adams exposed false claims about patent medicines.

Journalism has earned a spot as the watchdog of all branches of government through constitutional freedom of the press. Some call it the fourth branch of government for their work of investigating, exposing, and urging reform. Through the work of investigative journalists, average citizens in the country became aroused to the point of pushing for reform.

This period in our history became known as the Progressive Era that focused on defeating corruption and monopoly. While President Roosevelt wasn’t necessarily responsible for their work, he provided his approval and saw to it that corrective actions began. I’m sympathetic to their work and have to assume that Grandpa was, too. I’ve reached across a century to assure myself that he would have supported it.