As the trip wound to a close, the Washington State Leavenworth Echo remarked, Roosevelt’s “abiding popularity” would force opponents to revise the “ill-concealed delight” with which they had recently predicted his demise. “To borrow the humor of Mark Twain,” the piece continued, “his political death appears to have been very much exaggerated.” Indeed, “not another man since the death of Abraham Lincoln could have aroused one-half the popular enthusiasm that his recent trip around the United States created.”
ROOSEVELT RETURNED HOME FROM HIS tour to find that the president had engineered a resurgence of his own. For months, Taft had been working quietly on a plan he hoped would convince the American people that despite the complications of the Payne-Aldrich bill, he was a steadfast “low tariff and downward revision man.” The previous summer, Taft had initiated negotiations with Canada for a reciprocity agreement that would eliminate or drastically lower tariffs on both sides of the border. In January 1911, negotiators had surprised Washington by announcing a sweeping agreement to be implemented by “concurrent legislation” in Congress and the Canadian Parliament rather than by treaty—requiring a two-thirds vote in the Senate. By providing free trade in agricultural products and reduced tariffs on manufactured goods, the agreement promised to halt the rising cost of living, a major source of public dissatisfaction.
An hour after the old Congress adjourned on March 4, Taft called for the new Congress to meet in special session a month later and consider the reciprocity legislation. Taft liked his chances with the new Congress, which ordinarily would not have convened until December, knowing that Democrats, long opposed to the Republican policy of protectionism, would enjoy a majority in the House and enlarged representation in the Senate. “At one stroke,” the monthly periodical Current Literature observed, “the Taft administration has altered the whole aspect of political affairs in America, reversed political predictions, confused party ranks and stirred into quick activity industrial and commercial bodies all over the country.” And “for the first time since he entered the White House,” the writer added, “President Taft now assumes, in the mind of the people, the post of a real leader.” No longer “following the lead of President Roosevelt or Senator Aldrich, or Senator La Follette, or any other man,” William Taft was “striking out a policy of his own.” Expressing similar optimism, the New York Times declared that not for a decade had there been such a “well-considered and heroic” break with the “stupid, sordid, greedy” policies of previous administrations. “Beyond all question he has the country behind him.”
In contrast to the 1909 tariff fight, the president was clearly unwilling to “sit still and await results.” Leaders of the House and Senate were summoned for “breakfast, lunch and dinner.” Taft invited a group of ten senators for a “week-end sail” on the luxurious presidential yacht, the Mayflower. He composed a series of speeches, setting forth clear arguments for reciprocity. Tariffs were originally designed, he pointed out, to accommodate differences in the cost of production at home and abroad. Yet, between Canada and the United States, “linked together by race, language, political institutions and geographical proximity,” there was essentially nothing to equalize. Given this situation, “the productive forces” of both countries should be allowed to operate freely.
Taft adroitly kept Theodore Roosevelt informed at every development, securing his invaluable support. Before he announced the agreement, the president had written a long letter to the Colonel, explaining his reasoning in full. “What you propose to do with Canada is admirable from every standpoint,” Roosevelt had replied. “I firmly believe in Free Trade with Canada for both economic and political reasons.” While it might “damage the Republican Party for awhile,” he continued, it would “surely benefit the party in the end.” That spring, Roosevelt “vigorously advocated” the reciprocity legislation in public speeches as well as private correspondence. Beyond the economic advantages, he argued, “it should always be a cardinal point in our foreign policy to establish the closest and most friendly relations of equal respect and advantage with our great neighbor on the North.”
When debate opened in the House and Senate, Taft told Charley, he “expected the insurgents not only to support the bill but to claim that I was only trailing after them, and coming to their view.” Lower tariffs had been the insurgents’ rallying cry. Their passionate opposition to the Payne-Aldrich bill had launched them to national prominence: “Give us something,” they had repeatedly argued, “which will decrease the cost of living and save the poor from starvation.” The reciprocity agreement promised to address this underlying issue, but it placed the progressives in a serious, unanticipated bind. The majority of insurgents came from midwestern agricultural states. While public sentiment overwhelmingly favored reciprocity, farmers were among the special interests passionately opposed, fearing that free admission of Canada’s agricultural products would reduce the demand for food products at home. Unwilling to antagonize their constituents, the insurgents led the attack against the bill.
The adage “politics makes strange bedfellows” was never more clearly illustrated than in the curious alliance that coupled insurgents with conservative “standpatters,” who viewed reciprocity as the compromising breach in “the entire citadel of protection.” The independent press, which had long admired the fighting spirit of the insurgents, now charged them with hypocrisy. “Washington grows weary of the insurgents,” the National Herald declared. “This is something more than inconsistency.” The “valiant little insurgent band” had shown themselves just “as selfish” as the Old Guard. Many of the derogatory comments were directed at Robert La Follette, who announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination in the midst of the reciprocity struggle. As the Wisconsin senator repeatedly sought to delay consideration of the popular bill, he was denounced for “trying to manufacture an issue for the Presidential campaign.”
On April 21, 1911, the House passed a comprehensive reciprocity bill with strong Democratic support. Two months later, the Senate followed suit. Taft was thrilled, believing the legislation would signal the arrival of “a great epoch” for the country. The Washington Times agreed. “Today will be an important date in tariff history,” the paper remarked; tariff duties, having reached their high point, would finally “descend on the other side.” After the vote, Taft “extended his formal thanks to the Democrats,” acknowledging that without their aid, “reciprocity would have been impossible.”
Meanwhile, discussion of the legislation in the Canadian Parliament had descended into “hysteria.” Conservative opponents issued dire warnings that reciprocity would inevitably lead to Canada’s annexation by the United States. During the struggle in Congress, opponents had deliberately raised the specter of takeover, going so far as to introduce a resolution calling for negotiations to begin. Taft immediately reassured Canadian officials that no one in the administration had any thought of annexation. “Canada is now and will remain a political unit,” he declared. Roosevelt underscored the president’s efforts with an emphatic attack on the “bad faith” and “mean spirit” of those members of Congress who “sought to bar the path” to reciprocity by “pretending to look towards the annexation of Canada.” With the Canadian debate spinning out of control, Liberal prime minister Sir Wilfrid Laurier decided to dissolve Parliament and take the case for reciprocity to the people in a September election. The great majority of Canadians, he believed, appreciated the tremendous economic advantages reciprocity would bring.
Taft’s success with reciprocity had significantly altered the political landscape. The president “has gained remarkably in public estimation,” one editorial observed, while “the insurgents have sagged steadily.” Taft further consolidated his position when he offered to bring Henry Stimson into his cabinet as secretary of war. Stimson sought advice from Roosevelt, who “strongly urged” him to take the post and do everything possible to help the president. “If two years ago [Taft] had done some of the things he has done now
, he would probably have saved himself from nine tenths of the blunders he has made,” Roosevelt remarked. Nevertheless, the Colonel had no intention of supporting Taft or anyone else for the nomination. Henceforth, he intended to keep “as much aloof from politics as possible.”
WILL AND NELLIE WOULD LATER look back on June 19, 1911, as the happiest day of their White House years. Nellie had never forgotten the sense of wonder she experienced as a sixteen-year-old when she accompanied her parents to Washington for the elaborate festivities surrounding the silver wedding anniversary of Rutherford and Lucy Hayes. As her own silver anniversary approached that June, she began to coordinate an equally grand party that “would be remembered through life by all who were fortunate enough to be present.”
The mansion and the gardens would be illuminated with 10,000 colored lights and hundreds of Japanese lanterns. Spotlights were positioned on the nearby rooftops to beam down on the fountains and the lawns. Weather permitting, the reception would be held on the South Lawn, followed by dinner and dancing in the East Room. Invitations were sent to all the members of official Washington: the cabinet, members of Congress, Army and Navy officers, the diplomatic corps, and many other distinguished guests. To give the affair “a unique distinction,” Nellie invited the relatives of all former presidents—including kinsmen of Abraham Lincoln, Ulysses S. Grant, James Garfield, Grover Cleveland, Benjamin Harrison, and Theodore Roosevelt. All told, 5,000 invitations were issued.
On May 11, five weeks before the grand event, Nellie and Will went to New York to attend a banquet at the Hotel Astor. Watching over Nellie as Taft spoke, Butt noted how much her health seemed improved, “how truly pretty she was.” After the dinner, the president and first lady, accompanied by the newly promoted Major Butt, went to Harry and Julia Taft’s apartment, where they planned to spend the night. “For nearly an hour,” Butt recalled, they enjoyed “Scotch and soda” and pleasant conversation before retiring. In the middle of the night, Archie heard Taft’s voice in the hallway, shouting for help.
Nellie had suffered another stroke, “similar to the first one” though “less severe.” Once again, she was unable “to articulate clearly or to find her words,” Helen told her brother. Though her slow, hard-won progress was wiped away and “the defect in her speech” made her shrink from seeing anyone outside her family, Nellie refused to stay in bed. News that the first lady had “suffered a serious breakdown” brought “genuine regret and sympathy” from people across the country, along with speculation that the anniversary party would be canceled.
Determined to realize her dream, Nellie spent hours each day practicing a series of stock phrases she could use for the receiving line. She found the perfect dress for the occasion—a heavy white satin gown embroidered with silver flowers, fitted for her slender figure. Should the weather prove inclement, she outlined plans to move the entire party indoors. The president, too, was obsessed with “every detail,” walking through the mansion and the grounds day after day to ensure that everything was “finished on time.”
At 9 p.m., buglers trumpeted the start of the grand march, officially opening the anniversary celebration. Preceded by dozens of military aides clad in “immaculate white” and followed by the members of the cabinet, the president and first lady walked down the stairway to the sounds of Mendelssohn’s “Wedding March.” “A mighty shout went up” as they passed, a correspondent reported. “President Taft smiled and dimpled and bowed, and Mrs. Taft smiled and bowed, and everybody smiled.” The applause continued as the couple made their way to the enclosed arbor, where Archie Butt stood ready to present each of the 5,000 guests to the president and first lady. Nineteen-year-old Helen remained close by, ready to take her mother’s place at the first sign of trouble, but Nellie stayed on the receiving line until “the last hand was shaken.”
Finally, Taft escorted the first lady to the mansion, where she relaxed on the portico to watch the dancing in the East Room while he returned to the garden. The president “skipped lightly from group to group,” a Washington correspondent observed, “bringing personal messages of hospitality, enjoying himself to the fullest.” He expressed his pride in Nellie’s fortitude to all. She had stayed by his side “from start to finish,” despite his repeated efforts “to make her sit down and save her strength.” It appeared she thoroughly enjoyed herself, and that, above all, made him “happy as a boy.”
THE PRESS TOOK NOTICE OF the conspicuous absence of Theodore and Edith Roosevelt at the silver anniversary party. Two weeks earlier, when Taft and Roosevelt attended the Jubilee celebration for Baltimore’s Cardinal Gibbons, no hint of discord was evident as the two old friends “chatted, laughed and behaved just as they used to when Mr. Roosevelt was in the White House and Mr. Taft was Secretary of War.” Roosevelt had promised they would try to attend the anniversary party, but at the last minute he declined. In the interim, a troubling incident had intervened, bringing an end to the temporary period of rapprochement between the two men. Elaborating on the visible rapport at Baltimore, “misguided friends” of the president had inspired an Associated Press story suggesting that Roosevelt had finally decided to endorse Taft, having determined that “under no circumstance” would he allow his own name to go before the convention. A “mutual friend” of both men had purportedly brought word of Roosevelt’s endorsement to the White House. “This is the best political news Mr. Taft has received in many months,” remarked the Hartford Herald, “and it comes to him in a manner that leaves no doubt as to its authenticity.”
Asked to “affirm or deny” the report, Roosevelt simply answered, “I have made no such statement to the Associated Press or any paper. That is all I have to say.” Taft’s supporters hoped he would leave it at that, but as the hours went by, the Colonel became increasingly irritated. This was “too much like a repetition” of the New Haven incident, where he had been put in the embarrassing position of seeming to beg for Taft’s aid. In his next go-round with the press, he flatly labeled the endorsement report “an unqualified falsehood.” Still angry a week later, Roosevelt wrote to the editor of the Philadelphia North American. “It was outrageous for the Associated Press to fake that statement,” he insisted. These vehement denials, the Chicago Daily Tribune declared, “threw a bombshell in political circles.” While the disclaimer was “hailed with jubilation by the progressives,” it engendered “considerable chagrin” among Taft’s friends.
Resentment between the two men deepened later that summer when Roosevelt came out in striking public opposition to a peace project Taft had carefully developed. On August 4, after months of negotiation, representatives from the United States, England, and France gathered in the Oval Office to sign a comprehensive arbitration treaty. They had forged an agreement that every contentious issue that might arise, even those matters relating to national honor, would be “subject to arbitration.” Taft believed that if the treaty emerged relatively intact from the Senate, it would be “the great jewel” of his administration, “the greatest act” of his tenure as president.
“The ideal to which we are all working,” he declared, “is the ultimate establishment of an arbitral court to which we shall submit our international controversies with the same freedom and the same dependence on the judgment as in the case of domestic courts.” No longer would “the interests of the great masses” be sacrificed to “the intrigues of statesmen unwilling to surrender their scepter of power.” While he would never “minimize” the debt owed to the nation’s soldiers, “when the books are balanced, the awful horrors” of war “far outweigh the benefits that may be traced to it.” As the photographer prepared to capture the historic signing, Archie Butt deftly rearranged the president’s desk so that a large photo of Nellie would be visible. “She meant so much in his life at all crucial times that I wanted her represented at this scene,” Archie wrote.
Even before the treaty was signed, Roosevelt had positioned himself against the idea that countries could arbitrate questions of national honor. “No self-
respecting nation,” he wrote in The Outlook, “no nation worth calling a nation, would ever in actual practice consent to surrender its rights in such matters.” Acquiescence, he maintained, would be tantamount to watching a man slap your wife and then depending upon an arbitrator to settle the matter. Archie Butt was “greatly disappointed” with Roosevelt’s article. He considered the analogy puerile, “unworthy” of the man he revered. “For the first time,” in discussion with Taft, he openly criticized his “old chief.” Roosevelt had not yet exhausted his strident proclamations, however. When the president of the National Rifle Association wrote a scathing editorial criticizing Taft’s “mushy” concern with “the horrors of war,” Roosevelt expressed wholehearted approval. Roosevelt particularly savored the line which claimed that “death was not a dreadful thing. To me there is something unspeakably humiliating and degrading in the way in which men have grown to speak in the name of humanity of death as the worst of all possible evils. No man is fit to live,” he asserted, “unless he is ready to quit life for adequate cause.”
That September, as the Senate continued to debate the treaty, Roosevelt published a second article on the subject in The Outlook. “It is one of our prime duties as a nation to seek peace. It is an even higher duty to seek righteousness,” he began. After detailing the treaty’s numerous defects, he concluded that “there are some questions of national policy and conduct which no nation can submit to the decision of any one else.” A president’s willingness to countenance such outside arbitration “would be proof positive that he was not fit to hold the exalted position to which he had been elected.”