NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #26/NN_1992_26.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/8171

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Subject: HIST:How Capitalists Rule/Pt.21
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Via The NY Transfer News Service * All the News that Doesn't Fit

How Capitalists Rule/The Republocrats: Part 21

AIM AT BARN, HIT BULLSEYE

By Vince Copeland

In the 1904 election campaign, President Theodore Roosevelt gave
instructions to his aides to soft-pedal his "trust-busting" and
boast more about his achievements in foreign policy--that is, his
imperialist takeovers and triumphs that would benefit U.S.
capitalism as a whole, not just one corporation over another.

Elihu Root, Secretary of War, gave the keynote address at the
Republican national convention in Chicago. Roosevelt instructed him
to emphasize the Open Door in China, the administration of the
Philippines, the "independence" of Cuba, the advances in U.S.
forestry, the army, the navy and his enforcement of the Monroe
Doctrine against England and the other imperialist rivals.

This evidently hit the bull's eye, because the Republican money men
nearly all came through for Roosevelt.

Roosevelt may not have invented "progressivism," but he adapted
himself completely to the mood of the majority of the people. He
was so successful at this that the so-called "muckrakers," who
really did expose some of Roosevelt's friends as much as anyone
else, were often regarded and sometimes regarded themselves as
together with TR in the same crusade against the big money.

But the very word "muckraker" was coined by Roosevelt himself as a
putdown of the more militant writers who exposed political and
corporate corruption at this time. He did this to chastise and slow
these writers down, as even the most casual study of his words will
show.

ROOSEVELT ON HAVES AND HAVE-NOTS

Here, for instance, is what he said as president in defense of the
Senate, just at the time when a series of articles called "The
Treason of the Senate" was appearing in the Hearst press.

"In Pilgrim's Progress," Roosevelt fulminated, "you may recall the
description of the Man with the Muckrake, who could look no way but
downward with the muckrake in his hand, who was offered a celestial
crown for his muckrake, but who would neither look up nor regard
the crown he was offered, but continued to rake to himself the
filth of the floor.

"In Pilgrim's Progress, the Man with the Muckrake is set forth as
the example of him whose vision is fixed on carnal instead of on
spiritual things. Yet he also signifies the man who in this life
consistently fails to see aught that is lofty, and fixes his eyes
with solemn intentness only on that which is vile and debasing....

"If, on the other hand, it turns into a mere crusade of appetite
against appetite, of a contest between the brutal greed of the
`have-nots' and the brutal greed of the `haves,'then it has no
significance for good, but only for evil. If it seeks to establish
a line of cleavage, not along the line which distinguishes good men
from bad, but along that other line, running at right angles
thereto, which divides those that are well off from those who are
less well off, then it will be fraught with immeasurable harm to
the body politic....

"The eighth commandment reads `Thou shalt not steal.' It does not
read `Thou shalt not steal from the rich man.' It does not read
`Thou shalt not steal from the poor man.' ... No good whatever will
come from that warped and mocked morality which denounces the
misdeeds of men of wealth and forgets the misdeeds practiced at
their expense^." And so on and so forth. (Quoted in an appendix to
the book "Treason of the Senate," by David Graham Philips. This
book was a compilation of the series of articles in the
Hearst-owned Cosmopolitan magazine.)

DEFENDING CHAUNCEY DEPEW WITHOUT NAMING HIM

Roosevelt said this in 1906, right after Philips had attacked
Chauncey Depew in one of the earlier articles. Depew was the
Senator from New York State and represented the Morgan interests.
Roosevelt did not mention Chauncey's name because of the latter's
bad reputation, which was at its low point at this time. But his
defense of the Morgan interests shines through his pastoral letter
like a beam of holy light. The language is not so different from
his youthful outbursts against women voting and slaves being too
thoughtlessly emancipated.

Perhaps we have overemphasized Roosevelt's synthetic
"progressivism" in order to clarify its connection with his
imperialism. The fact is that he also advanced the art and possibly
the science of government farther than it had been before. This
diminished the real role of the big political parties as
independent ruling bodies at the same time that it enhanced their
activities and made them work harder.

It is perfectly true that no trusts were really broken during
Roosevelt's reign and no regulations of big business were adopted
that really hurt the existing giant corporations. Gabriel Kolko's
"Triumph of Conservatism" proves again and again that the
Rooseveltian regulations were in the interests of the biggest
industrial combines and not against them. But even Kolko tends to
downplay the more or less genuine aloofness that TR felt from the
Wall Street crowd and the fact that while he was ultimately
dependent upon the Morgans, he rather enjoyed taking them on.

At one point in a private dinner party at which J.P. Morgan was
present, Roosevelt outlined some progressive steps he wanted to
take and then walked over behind Morgan's chair, held his fist
under Morgan's nose, and said, "And you won't stop us, either!"
This was not calculated to make the great financier a bosom buddy
of Theodore's.

HE MADE THE GOVERNMENT MORE EFFICIENT

Ferdinand Lundberg, who was well aware of Roosevelt's posturings
and his failings, summed up his service to government in the
following pithy manner:

"Roosevelt's outstanding contribution was that he made the
government infinitely more efficient than it had ever been before.
The civil service was extended, forest lands and water-power sites
were reclaimed, irrigation projects were launched, and the Navy was
made into an effective collector at foreign ports. The money spent
to elect Roosevelt had brought not only special favors to the major
contributors but had also given them the best government, from the
standpoint of businesslike operation, they had ever had."
("America's Sixty Families," p. 100)

But did the biggest money kings fully appreciate their enfant
terrible? They, like other kings and queens, had a
predilection for executing the messenger with the bad news and
sometimes a lack of appreciation for the dentist who pulled out
their rotten teeth. J.P. Morgan, at any rate, made sure that
Roosevelt would never again be president, as we shall see in the
election of 1912.

PRESIDENT MAKERS AND FIXERS

We have remarked on the power and presence of leading capitalists
at the very heart and brain of the two big parties, particularly
the role of William Whitney for the Democrats and Mark Hanna for
the Republicans. But with the accession of Roosevelt in 1901,
Hanna's power began to fade.

Another very big Wall Streeter had entered the picture by this
time. That was George W. Perkins, a leading partner of J.P. Morgan,
who resigned from his banking activities and busied himself almost
exclusively with national politics. He became quite close to
Roosevelt, but was influential with the Democrats, too.

Perkins was overshadowed, of course, by Roosevelt himself, who
really played the role of the direct representative of the ruling
class, even though he wasn't politically identical with that class.
At least that was the situation during the actual years of
Roosevelt's presidency. Perkins, however, did play the role of
presidential adviser to Roosevelt and, after getting his confidence
as a friend, in 1912 intervened in the election process (at the
behest of J.P. Morgan) as well as the governing business to
outmaneuver Roosevelt.

REFORMING THE U.S. SENATE

Roosevelt's duel with the radical "muckrakers," as he called them,
took place in 1906. It put him on the wrong side in the popular
campaign for a constitutional amendment allowing the electorate to
vote directly for U.S. Senators. They were still at that time
selected by the state legislatures. It took another seven years for
the amendment to pass.

The people had tried to change this undemocratic procedure several
times in the 19th century. The first resolution demanding a popular
vote for the Senate was introduced in the House of Representatives
in 1826. From then until 1915, 197 similar resolutions were
presented. Six of these came to a vote and were passed by the
necessary two-thirds majority in the House, but not in the Senate
(in 1893, 1894, 1898, 1900, 1902 and 1911).

As it became a hot issue in the 1890s, the Peoples Party featured
it in its platforms of 1892, 1906, 1900 and 1904. The Democratic
Party and the Prohibition Party took it up in 1904. A California
referendum passed such a motion by a vote of 14 to 1 in 1892. In
Nevada it was 7 to 1 in 1893 and in Illinois 6 to 1 in 1902.

But of course, even after there was a popular election for this
aristocratic body, the body still left much to be desired. Only a
half dozen of the most corrupt Senators were retired and the
six-year term guaranteed a big hangover of conservative
time-servers.

Even the structure of the Senate is so flawed as to prevent
anything like real popular representation from ever taking effect.

For example, there are two Senators from each state regardless of
size. Little Delaware with 600,000 people today has two Senators;
and California with a population of 30 million also has two.
According to the most elementary principles of democracy and
arithmetic, California should have 100 Senators if Delaware has
two!

However, the phenomenon of the "insurgent" Senators appeared well
before the popular-election amendment was passed. The best-known
insurgent Senator was probably Albert Beveridge, Republican of
Indiana, who was also the most vociferous supporter of imperialism,
as we have shown in his panegyric to the U.S. conquest of the
Philippines. He was somewhat more "sincere" about his
"progressivism" than Roosevelt, and much less of a maneuverer. But
his interesting duality about imperialism at the same time
illustrates and accents our thesis about Roosevelt, although from
another point of view.

Beveridge was a "typical" American chauvinist who was also a leader
in the fight for the regulation of big business. He apparently
thought he was fighting the good fight on both fronts.

                          -30-

(Copyright Workers World Service: Permission to reprint granted if
source is cited. For more info contact Workers World, 46 W. 21 St.,
New York, NY 10010; "workers" on PeaceNet; on Internet:
"[e-mail]".)


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