Theodore Roosevelt Abroad by J. Lee Thompson Read Free Book Online Page A

to be settled when, as he expected, Taft won the 1908 election. An elated TR sent a telegram to his friend in Cincinnati: “I need hardly say how heartily I congratulate you, and the country even more.” He told Taft that the returns made it evident that he was “the only man who we could have nominated that could have been elected.” He had won a “great personal victory, as well as great victory for the party, and all those who love you, who admire and believe in you, and are proud of your great and fine qualities must feel a thrill of exultation over the way in which the American people have shown their insight and character, their adherence to high principle.” 75 In his thank you note for TR’s letter of congratulations, Taft seemed to give equal credit to “you and my brother Charlie” for his election—a statement Roosevelt would not forget and a first, and at the time small, fissure between the two men. 76
    Another early rift developed over Taft’s cabinet, chiefly on account of the dismissal of the activist and TR loyalist James Garfield from the Interior Department. Of course Roosevelt made it clear that the new president had the perfect right to nominate whomever he chose, even if it meant dismissing many worthy men. Taft nevertheless felt uncomfortable about the president’s obvious disapproval. From the Canal Zone, on his last inspection tour as vice president, he confided to Roosevelt that he was “very much torn up in my feelings in respect to the cabinet and leaving out so many men for whom I have the highest respect.” But the president-elect believed he was “doing right in making selections with a view to a somewhat different state of reforms” which TR had started and he must carry on. He knew he would be attacked for having more lawyers than he ought to have, among them the new Secretary of the Interior, Richard Achilles Ballinger. There was also the problem that many of the men he wanted had big business ties. Nevertheless, Taft explained to Roosevelt that he “wanted to get the best” and could not do so “without securing those who have had corporate employment.” 77
    The famously rotund Taft had not been physically up to the strenuous activity required for membership in the “tennis cabinet” and played golf instead. During his term in office, TR’s beloved dirt court was covered over by an addition to the White House, an act symbolic of the deterioration in relations between the two old friends. Taft did ride regularly which, Roosevelt quipped, was both “dangerous to him and cruel to the horse.” He advised Archie Butt, who was one of the select few chosen to stay on in the new regime, that life in the White House would be strenuous enough for Taft and that he should not take much exercise, which did him no good at any rate. If TR were the president-elect, he would “content myself with the record I was able to make in the next four years or the next eight and then be content to die.” 78 While making his own record, Taft was also pledged to guard with his political life Roosevelt’s progressive achievements, of which conservation was most prominent.
    The success of the May 1908 White House Conference had led TR to call a North American Conservation Conference which two weeks before he left office brought Canadian and Mexican representatives to the White House. The delegates agreed on a declaration of conservation principles and, caught up in the spirit of the event, urged that, “all nations should be invited to join together in conference on the subject of world resources, and their inventory, conservation and wise utilization.” 79 A delighted Roosevelt instructed his secretary of state to send invitations to forty-five nations to attend such a global conference at a date to be determined in the future. TR envisioned the conclave being held at Carnegie’s Peace Palace at The Hague, but without his guidance and energy the proposed conference was stillborn and it would