The Bully Pulpit

 

Doris Kearns Goodwin, “1491: The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism,” Simon & Schuster, 2013, 750 pp.

This book is much too long for the content it contains; way too much unnecessary detail; having said that:

Doris Kearns Goodwin, winner of the Pulitzer Prize and author of Team of Rivals, describes the Progressive Era and the contributions of dedicated journalists through the story of the broken friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, culminating in their running against one another for president in 1912.

The book the Republican Progressive movement, a mini-biography of Teddy Roosevelt, and mini-biography of William Howard Taft, the story of the Roosevelt/Taft friendship and alliance that turned sour, and the history of the muckrakers, including mini-biographies of the key muckraker writers.  I especially liked portions about Ida Tarbell as well as J.P. Morgan’s role in correcting the 1907 financial panic, actually taking the place of the Federal Reserve which did not yet exist.

Taft comes out looking pretty good in this book. He and Roosevelt were both well aligned philosophically as Republican Progressives, but they were very different stylistically. Taft was cautious, and respectful of norms, process, and constitutionality. He didn’t enjoy the spotlight like Roosevelt did. But overall, Taft comes off like a person with integrity, decency, and good judgment. While in his presidency he wasn’t popular, he didn’t start any wars, oversaw a period of rising prosperity without screwing it up, and didn’t have any scandals. If you grade on a curve, that is probably enough to land him at least above average.

The falling out of Taft and Roosevelt, and Roosevelt’s decision to run as a 3rd party candidate, is a crazy story. They had been best of friends and strong political allies. Roosevelt had fought hard for Taft to succeed him as president.  The falling out is entirely Roosevelt’s doing.  He desperately wanted to again be president, no matter what.  Amazingly, they did resume their friendship after Wilson won the presidency.

My Notes:

P. 12:  By the end of Roosevelt’s tenure as president, much had been accomplished.  The 1890 Sherman Anti-Trust Act had been revived, vast acres of lands had been protected from exploitation, and railroads had been prevented from continuing long-standing abuses.  Congress had passed workmen’s compensation, a pure food and drug law, and a meat inspection act.  Nevertheless, much remained to be done (and Roosevelt felt his successor, Taft, should continue his work.)

Pg. 81:  Roosevelt lost his wife and Mother on the same day in 1884

Pg. 275:  Taft, at the request of President Roosevelt, did a spectacular job serving as the governor general of the Philippines.

P. 326:  McClure’s magazine published many articles.  Tarbell’s Standard Oil series eventually stretched over a three-year period; Steffens’s studies of corrupt political machines in a dozen cities and states’ generated fourteen articles and two books; and Baker later attributed the tremendous impact of these meticulously researched eposes to the fact that they finally verified years of “prophets crying in the wilderness, and political campaigns based upon charges of corruption and privilege which everyone believed or suspected had some basis of truth, but which were largely unsubstantiated.”  The solid reputation of McClure’s and the gifted stable of writers assured millions of Americans they could trust what they were reading.

P. 584:  In 1909 the vast majority of American families subsisted on $500 or less a year on which they had to support a family on an average wage of six or eight dollars a week.  (My Grandma, born in 1885, would slip me a dollar for mowing their lawn in the early 1950s; she must have thought of this as a small fortune.  And, it was too me, it went a long way at the time.)