Speaker 1: History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: Mental Flaws. Bucyrus steam shovel chugging away in the Caliber
Speaker 1: cut is huge and complicated. It requires an engineer, a crane,
Speaker 1: man of firemen, and several pitmen to keep it operating.
Speaker 1: The machines five cubic yard bucket is capable of moving
Speaker 1: eight tons of rock or nearly seven tons of earth
Speaker 1: in a single scoop. And here in the massive gash
Speaker 1: in the earth that will become the Panama Canal, the
Speaker 1: machine goes about its job, scooping and dumping, scooping and
Speaker 1: dumping elephant sized mounds of earth into waiting railway cars,
Speaker 1: and currently President Theodore Roosevelt is behind the controls. It's
Speaker 1: November six and with this trip to Panama Tierra has
Speaker 1: become the first sitting president to leave the United States.
Speaker 1: He's inspecting the progress on the canal that will one
Speaker 1: day connect to the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. When he
Speaker 1: sees the steam shovel from his train, the President, who
Speaker 1: is a kid at heart and can't resist a little
Speaker 1: adventure or a photo op, instructs the train to stop,
Speaker 1: hops down and strides in his crisp white suit into
Speaker 1: the muddy cut. He hops on board the steam shovel
Speaker 1: and begins a discussion with the engineer. Later, he'll tell
Speaker 1: some assembled workers, you are doing the biggest thing of
Speaker 1: the kind that has ever been done, and I wanted
Speaker 1: to see how you are doing it. He reports that
Speaker 1: he'll be able to tell people back in the States
Speaker 1: that he can guarantee the success of the mighty work
Speaker 1: the men are doing in Panama, adding it is not
Speaker 1: an easy work. Mighty few things that are worth doing
Speaker 1: are easy. The Panama Canal won't open until Feen, but
Speaker 1: tears visit allows him to see a dream he had
Speaker 1: spoken of since coming to life, and the fact that
Speaker 1: he had supported a revolution with the American Navy to
Speaker 1: make it happen didn't bother him in the least. The
Speaker 1: canal was being built, and it would allow the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy to move easily from ocean to ocean, and to
Speaker 1: get to America's specific territories more quickly and bully to that,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt famously said, speak softly and carry a big stick,
Speaker 1: you will go far. To some tr was an American visionary,
Speaker 1: to others a warmonger, but he was a man just
Speaker 1: as notable for the battles he fought, as he was
Speaker 1: for the piece he secured. So just how did tr
Speaker 1: use this big stick energy at home and around the world,
Speaker 1: and how far did it get him? We're about to
Speaker 1: find out. From Mental Floss and I Heart Radio. This
Speaker 1: is History Versus, a podcast about how your favorite historical
Speaker 1: figures faced off against their greatest foes. I'm your host,
Speaker 1: Aaron McCarthy, and this episode is t r Versus the World.
Speaker 1: It's not so surprising that Theodore Roosevelt had a lot
Speaker 1: of opinions about America's place in the world. After all,
Speaker 1: by the time he entered politics, Roosevelt had seen a
Speaker 1: lot of the world. As a kid. He traveled extensively
Speaker 1: with his family, touring Europe between eighteen sixty nine and
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy and visiting Egypt and Jerusalem in eighteen seventy
Speaker 1: two and eighteen seventy three. After both his first and
Speaker 1: second marriages, he honeymooned in Europe. Roosevelt came into the
Speaker 1: White House on the heels of a number of Civil
Speaker 1: War veterans occupying the office. For them, worldliness was not
Speaker 1: a prerequisite for the job. President McKinley famously couldn't even
Speaker 1: find the Philippines on a map when the Spanish American
Speaker 1: War began. Here's Jeffrey Warrow, professor and director of the
Speaker 1: Military History Center at the University of North Texas, speaking
Speaker 1: at the twenty nineteen Theodore Roosevelt's Imposium put up by
Speaker 1: the Theatre Roosevelt Center at Dickenson State University in North Dakota.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt arrived in the White House with a better knowledge
Speaker 1: and feel for the world than arguably any of his predecessors,
Speaker 1: with a possible exception of James Monroe or John Adams.
Speaker 1: What he did was travel and read, travel and read
Speaker 1: and reflect. That's Clay Jenkinson, founder of the Theater Roosevelt Center.
Speaker 1: He's been to Germany, he lived there, his family has
Speaker 1: been to the Vatican. He's met the Pope. He's gone
Speaker 1: to Egypt. He's hunted along the Nile. He's you know,
Speaker 1: he's met heads of state. He's had one of the
Speaker 1: most privileged travel lives of any American president. And he's read.
Speaker 1: He reads five languages. He reads maybe not a book
Speaker 1: a day, but close to it. He's voracious. He loves history,
Speaker 1: he loves geopolitics. He knows the Roman Empire, he knows Napoleon,
Speaker 1: you know, rise of the British Empire. And it's the
Speaker 1: guy who knows things. From the moment Roosevelt entered the
Speaker 1: political arena, his mind was on expansion. After President Grover Cleveland,
Speaker 1: and anti imperialist, refused to annex Hawaii, Roosevelt bemoaned his
Speaker 1: decision not to exert his power for tr Taking Hawaii
Speaker 1: was a necessity for the US. He would help the
Speaker 1: country build up a military that could compete with Japan's
Speaker 1: might out in the Pacific and expand American influence on
Speaker 1: the other side of the globe. In eighteen writing and
Speaker 1: Century magazine, Roosevelt said, it was a crime against the
Speaker 1: United States. It was a crime against white civilization. Not
Speaker 1: to annexit two and a half years ago. The delay
Speaker 1: did damage that was perhaps irreparable. Or it meant that
Speaker 1: at the critical period of the island's growth, the in
Speaker 1: blocks of population consisted not of white Americans, but of
Speaker 1: low cast laborers drawn from the Yellow races. So I
Speaker 1: just want to pause right here because of those phrases
Speaker 1: white civilization and yellow races. Roosevelt stance on imperialism is
Speaker 1: tied to and informed by his views of race. We'll
Speaker 1: discuss how he developed his views in a later episode,
Speaker 1: but the cliffs Notes version is that Tier's elite upbringing, reading, habits,
Speaker 1: Ivy League, education, and travels, along with eighteenth and nineteenth
Speaker 1: century ideas about cultural and racial development, all informed his
Speaker 1: racial theories. Ideas that we know today are totally wrong
Speaker 1: and also totally repugnant, according to historian Thomas G. Dyer,
Speaker 1: author of Theodore Roosevelt in the Idea of Race, Roosevelt
Speaker 1: believed that the white English speaking American race was superior
Speaker 1: to other races, and he thought it was America's duty
Speaker 1: to export its white civilization to other areas of the globe.
Speaker 1: Tr believed that all races and nationalities evolved through the
Speaker 1: same stages of development, from chaotic savages to barbarism, where
Speaker 1: races organized military virtues are formed, to the next stage,
Speaker 1: where those military virtues blend with order and racial proliferation,
Speaker 1: to the final two stages, which see a society lose
Speaker 1: its fighting edge and eventually fall into decadence and death.
Speaker 1: He thought that for a race to be successful and
Speaker 1: stay there, it was necessary to keep what he called
Speaker 1: its barbarian virtues basically, you've got to keep fighting to
Speaker 1: stay on top tier. Knew that conflict would be inevitable
Speaker 1: in expanding America's interests around the world, and due to
Speaker 1: his belief in the importance of keeping those barbarian virtues,
Speaker 1: he wanted it. He wrote that I should welcome almost
Speaker 1: any war where I think this country needs one, and
Speaker 1: in an address given not long after, he said, all
Speaker 1: the great masterful races have been fighting races. And the
Speaker 1: minute that a race loses the hard fighting virtues, then
Speaker 1: no matter what else it may retain, no matter how
Speaker 1: skilled in commerce and finance, in science or art, it
Speaker 1: has lost its proud right to stand as the equal
Speaker 1: of the best. Do you feel kind of uncomfortable right
Speaker 1: now listening to this? So did I when I read it.
Speaker 1: There's so much it's problematic here. But before we dig
Speaker 1: into it a little more history. Cleveland wasn't alone in
Speaker 1: disliking America's imperialistic tendencies. This was a period when many
Speaker 1: elected officials had a general distaste for growing a military
Speaker 1: and expanding American influence around the globe. William Jennings Bryan,
Speaker 1: President McKinley's opponent in the presidential election, and a man
Speaker 1: who was pretty much the complete opposite of Roosevelt, laid
Speaker 1: out the anti imperialist viewpoint perfectly, saying, we cannot set
Speaker 1: a high and honorable example for the emulation of mankind
Speaker 1: while we roam the world like beasts of prey, seeking
Speaker 1: whom we may devour. Worldwide, though the tides of returning
Speaker 1: Japan and Russia were expanding in the Pacific, in Britain,
Speaker 1: France and Germany continued to colonize around the globe. All
Speaker 1: these other nations are um building colonial empires and seeking
Speaker 1: out new markets and acquiring territory. He thought Grover Cleveland
Speaker 1: should be impeached for not taking Hawaii when he had
Speaker 1: the chance. Uh, he's an imperialist and a jingoist. He
Speaker 1: believes that war can be healthy. A war can be
Speaker 1: healthy for a country. It can kind of reinvigorate you
Speaker 1: and and and concentrate your manhood and remove some frivolity
Speaker 1: and some complacency from the country. And that a good
Speaker 1: war now. And then it's out of a tune out. Um,
Speaker 1: we don't, we don't. Most of us don't see the
Speaker 1: world that way anymore. And he believes he's an ardent
Speaker 1: believer in the Monroe Doctrine, and that America is going
Speaker 1: to become a world power, and that we need a
Speaker 1: big navy because he's been reading um Mayn's book The
Speaker 1: Influence of Sea Power on History. Roosevelt's vision for a mightier,
Speaker 1: more expansive America would get closer to reality when he
Speaker 1: was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy in He was
Speaker 1: a vocal proponent for war against Spain at the time,
Speaker 1: in defiance of President McKinley's more methodical approach. Tr would
Speaker 1: also be a key figure in growing the U. S.
Speaker 1: Navy and preparing them to go to war at a
Speaker 1: moment's notice. And when the Spanish American War came in
Speaker 1: it was Roosevelt's who personally helped lead the charge on
Speaker 1: the ground in Cuba. Do you believe two things? One is,
Speaker 1: we need we need to do this, We need these wars.
Speaker 1: We need to assert ourselves as a nation and become
Speaker 1: second only to Britain. But maybe first um and secondly,
Speaker 1: if you want to lead this country, you need to
Speaker 1: know something about these things. You can't just be standing
Speaker 1: out on the prefect You have to get in the arena.
Speaker 1: You can see these getting the arena themes often in
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's speeches, including in The Strenuous Life, in which he
Speaker 1: explicitly linked empire making with the idea of American masculinity.
Speaker 1: The timid man, the lazy man, the man who distrusts
Speaker 1: his country, the over civilized man who has lost the
Speaker 1: great fighting master full virtues, the ignorant man, and the
Speaker 1: man of dull mind, whose soul is incapable of feeling
Speaker 1: the mighty lift that thrills stern men with empires in
Speaker 1: their brains. All these, of course, shrink from seeing the
Speaker 1: nation undertake its new duties, Shrink from seeing us build
Speaker 1: a navy in an army adequate to our needs. Shrink
Speaker 1: from seeing us do our share of the world's work
Speaker 1: by bringing order out of chaos. These are the men
Speaker 1: who fear these strenuous life, who fear the only national
Speaker 1: life which is really worth leading. Roosevelt also argued that
Speaker 1: in places like Cuba and the Philippines, Americans had a
Speaker 1: duty to oversee their populations until they reached a stage
Speaker 1: where they could govern themselves. In the Strenuous Life, he
Speaker 1: said that the Philippines offer a yet graver problem. Their
Speaker 1: population includes half caste and Native Christians warlike Moslems and
Speaker 1: wild Pagans. Many of their people are utterly unfit for
Speaker 1: self government and show no signs of becoming fit. Others
Speaker 1: may in time become fit, but at present can only
Speaker 1: take part in self government under a wise supervision, at
Speaker 1: once firm and beneficent. We have driven Spanish tyranny from
Speaker 1: the islands. If we now let it be replaced by
Speaker 1: savage anarchy, our work has been for harm and not
Speaker 1: for good. In his nineteen o one Annual Message to Congress,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt wrote that Americans could successfully govern themselves because they
Speaker 1: have been working at it for generations, and said that
Speaker 1: we couldn't expect to have another race accomplished out of
Speaker 1: hand what had taken Americans so long to achieve, especially
Speaker 1: when large portions of that race start very far behind
Speaker 1: the point which our ancestors had reached even thirty generations ago.
Speaker 1: He continued, In dealing with the Philippine people, we must
Speaker 1: show both patience and strength, forbearance and steadfast resolution. Our
Speaker 1: aim is high. We do not desire to do for
Speaker 1: the islanders merely what has elsewhere been done for Tropic
Speaker 1: people to buy even the best foreign governments, we hope
Speaker 1: to do for them what has never before been done
Speaker 1: for any people of the tropics, to make them fit
Speaker 1: for self government after the fashion of the really free nations.
Speaker 1: In the book of People's History of the United States,
Speaker 1: Howard's Inn writes that Roosevelt was contemptuous of races and
Speaker 1: nations he considered inferior, and according to Waro, Roosevelt never
Speaker 1: thought about how weird it was that Americans should be
Speaker 1: a democratic nation and yet imposed their decidedly not democratic
Speaker 1: will on other nations. He never, for example, contemplated the
Speaker 1: contradiction between American democracy and American imperialism, that is, having
Speaker 1: one system of government for Americans in the United States
Speaker 1: and another system of government for America's overseas columns. Of course,
Speaker 1: everything Roosevelt is positing completely disregards that those countries would
Speaker 1: have retained their right to self determination and been just
Speaker 1: fine if not for the intervention of foreign powers. Later,
Speaker 1: while campaigning as the vice presidential candidate for President McKinley,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt pushed for American control of the Philippines before he
Speaker 1: signed up to be VP. In fact, he'd written to
Speaker 1: his friend and mentor, Henry Cabot Lodge that the thing
Speaker 1: I should really like to do would be to be
Speaker 1: the first civil governor general of the Philippines. Still, there
Speaker 1: were opponents at home, including William Howard Taft, who would
Speaker 1: go on to serve as governor there. One of the
Speaker 1: most visible opponents and one of Roosevelt's most outspoken critics,
Speaker 1: was writer Mark Twain. In a interview that appeared in
Speaker 1: The New York World, Twain lamented America's insistence on intervening
Speaker 1: in the Filipino government. I have tried hard, and yet
Speaker 1: I cannot, for the life of me comprehend how we
Speaker 1: got into that mess, he proclaimed. I thought we should
Speaker 1: act as our protector, not try to get them under
Speaker 1: our heel. It was not to be a government according
Speaker 1: to our ideas, but a government that represented the feeling
Speaker 1: of the majority of the Filipinos, a government according to
Speaker 1: Filipino ideas. That would have been a worthy mission for
Speaker 1: the United States. But now why we have got into
Speaker 1: a mess, a quagmire from which each fresh step renders
Speaker 1: a difficulty of extrication immensely greater. The long and shockingly
Speaker 1: brutal war would be officially declared over in July two,
Speaker 1: and Tira was the President who made the announcement. Here's
Speaker 1: Michael Collin and author of Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost, when he's
Speaker 1: struggling with the war in the Philippines, the war that
Speaker 1: he inherits from McKinley, of course, and he's struggling with
Speaker 1: explaining how the US is going to get itself out
Speaker 1: of the Philippines with its hands unbloodied. And so what
Speaker 1: he does is he just declares the war over. And
Speaker 1: it's not over. I mean, the war goes on really
Speaker 1: until nineteen fifteen, but officially the war has ended in
Speaker 1: en two. In the end, an estimated forty undred American
Speaker 1: troops and twenty thousand Filipino troops have been killed in
Speaker 1: the conflict, but those numbers are a drop in the
Speaker 1: bucket compared to the two hundred thousand Filipino civilians that
Speaker 1: are thought to have died from famine, disease and military
Speaker 1: actions throughout the campaign. The years of war were and
Speaker 1: bloodshed give America a stronger foothold in the Pacific, which
Speaker 1: Tier believed was incredibly important for strategic reasons. But for
Speaker 1: many this was a potentially horrifying glimpse of a nation
Speaker 1: that was seemingly looking to plunge itself into war after war,
Speaker 1: all for the sake of devouring more territories. Here's Jenkinson.
Speaker 1: There's a constancy to his his foreign policy, and it
Speaker 1: really offended people like Mark Twain. And Mark Twain looked
Speaker 1: on this. This guy is actually crazy. This is a
Speaker 1: very dangerous match. This is the last thing the United
Speaker 1: States needs. It's gonna make us do all sorts are
Speaker 1: really awful and dark things. And it did you get
Speaker 1: involved in this sort of thing and become a world empire.
Speaker 1: You're going to start doing things that are not really
Speaker 1: harmonizing with the basic ideals of American life. UM ros
Speaker 1: do as well. If we don't do it, somebody else will.
Speaker 1: So we're going to do it. This seems like a
Speaker 1: good place to take a quick break. We'll be right back.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt viewed his role as a steward of the people,
Speaker 1: and as he would later in his autobiography, I did
Speaker 1: not usurp power, but I did greatly broaden the use
Speaker 1: of executive power. Roosevelt believed his position should be one
Speaker 1: of action. He wanted to influence policy and enact as
Speaker 1: much positive change as possible, and he used power aggressively
Speaker 1: and oftentimes unilaterally. Often, his weapon of choice was an
Speaker 1: executive order. Since the president cannot create new laws without
Speaker 1: Congress getting involved, executive orders exist as a way for
Speaker 1: a president to instruct employees in the executive branch to
Speaker 1: interpret existing laws a certain way. So tr wasn't creating
Speaker 1: new laws, but was instead manipulating them how he wanted.
Speaker 1: He passed staggering one thousand eighty one executive orders during
Speaker 1: his tenure in office to get things done. Roosevelt far
Speaker 1: outpaced his predecessor, William McKinley, who tellied just a hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty five executive orders. Here's culinen Congress can act.
Speaker 1: I mean it is that it is the most powerful
Speaker 1: branch if it could operate effectively. Um, and sometimes it does.
Speaker 1: But that's what Roosevelt I think understood was that Congress
Speaker 1: wasn't able to organize itself. That there's too many factions
Speaker 1: within the two major parties that effectively their coalitions, and
Speaker 1: those coalitions don't always agree on policy, and it takes
Speaker 1: a long time for Congress to work through to reach
Speaker 1: a consensus, and so the president can do something in
Speaker 1: a moment, and the converse then well, as he said,
Speaker 1: has to debate it. Roosevelt's use of executive orders helped
Speaker 1: quadruple the amount of protective land in the United States
Speaker 1: and lowered the age of eligibility for pension for veterans
Speaker 1: to sixty two. For example, Roosevelt also acted unilaterally when
Speaker 1: it came to international affairs. Historian Kathleen Dalton writes that
Speaker 1: in foreign policy, Tier operated as a law unto himself.
Speaker 1: He sometimes dealt with other heads of state or intervened
Speaker 1: in international matters without consulting Congress or even his own
Speaker 1: cabinet first. These kinds of power moves did not go
Speaker 1: over well, and whenever someone criticized the president for making
Speaker 1: those moves well, that didn't go over well either. Take
Speaker 1: for example, when Roosevelt said the Great White Fleet sixteen
Speaker 1: naval battleships on a forty three thousand mile, fourteen month
Speaker 1: journey around the globe in n seven. This huge showcase
Speaker 1: of American power was sent off without giving Congress or
Speaker 1: the State Department a chance to approve the mission, which
Speaker 1: was an enormous expense and risk to the country. When
Speaker 1: one senator threatened to withhold the money for the trip,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt is said to have replied that he already had
Speaker 1: the money and dared the Senator to try and get
Speaker 1: it back. That brings us back to the Panama Canal,
Speaker 1: something tr would take heap for long after he left office.
Speaker 1: The idea of a man made canal across the Isthmus
Speaker 1: of Panama, a narrow strip of land between the Pacific
Speaker 1: and Atlantic Oceans, had been a far off dream for politicians,
Speaker 1: royalty and engineers from the sixteenth century. Holy Roman Emperor
Speaker 1: Charles the fifth is credited as the first world leader
Speaker 1: to seriously consider the idea and ordered a survey of
Speaker 1: the area in fifteen thirty four. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin
Speaker 1: Franklin would later support it, while Presidents Andrew Jackson and
Speaker 1: Ulysses S. Grant would go a step further by sending
Speaker 1: surveyors out to see about its feasibility. But the canal
Speaker 1: always seemed just out of reach of engineers at the
Speaker 1: time until eighteen sixty nine that's c of a Siouez
Speaker 1: Canal opened, which connected the Mediterranean Sea to the Red
Speaker 1: Sea through the Isthmus of Suez in Egypt. It provided
Speaker 1: the shortest route between Europe and the lands around the
Speaker 1: Indian and Western Pacific Oceans. Engineers now had a blueprint
Speaker 1: for tackling Panama, and France stepped up to try to
Speaker 1: make it happen. The Suez Canal Company had been comprised
Speaker 1: mainly of French investors and a team of engineers led
Speaker 1: by Ferdinando Lecepps. For the Panama project, France again brought
Speaker 1: in de Lacepps, who claimed that the project would take
Speaker 1: twelve years and two hundred and forty million dollars to finish.
Speaker 1: Work began in eighteen eighty one, but Panama could not
Speaker 1: be tamed like Suez. Heavy rains made work sites unnavigable
Speaker 1: and boiling heat. Snake bites, malaria, yellow fever, and smallpox
Speaker 1: killed off many of the men. Others were buried in
Speaker 1: mud slides along with their expensive equipment. The dangerous work
Speaker 1: environment was responsible for an estimated twenty thousand as the
Speaker 1: project's costs ballooned to two hundred and eighty seven million,
Speaker 1: and the canal was nowhere near done. By eighteen eighty nine,
Speaker 1: the French had given up. Dreams of a Panama Canal
Speaker 1: would seemingly go unfulfilled. Enter Theodore Roosevelts. When tierre ascended
Speaker 1: to the presidency, in nineteen o one. He almost immediately
Speaker 1: began talks of making his long held dreams of the
Speaker 1: canal a reality. He was determined to pick up where
Speaker 1: the French left off, telling Congress, no single great material
Speaker 1: work which remains to be undertaken on this continent is
Speaker 1: of such consequence to the American people. That might not
Speaker 1: be as overblown a statement as you'd think. A man
Speaker 1: made canal would cut thousands of miles off of trips
Speaker 1: that had previously required ships to go around the southern
Speaker 1: point of the America's It would speed up commerce, further
Speaker 1: connect to the globe, and in the hands of America,
Speaker 1: helped create an empire. Still, there was debate over the
Speaker 1: exact location of the canal. One school of thought believed
Speaker 1: in a canal in Nicaragua, while in increasing minority preferred Panama.
Speaker 1: Though Panama was losing in Congress, a man named Philippe
Speaker 1: Bruno Varia, a civil engineer and an investor who had
Speaker 1: financial ties to the old French project, successfully helped to
Speaker 1: lobby politicians to choose the more politically volatile Panama. To
Speaker 1: get to Panama, though you had to go through Colombia,
Speaker 1: which had control of the area, at the time, so
Speaker 1: Roosevelt had his Secretary of State John Hay, offered the
Speaker 1: government ten million dollars upfront and after nine years two
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars annually for the right to build
Speaker 1: the canal and lease the area, but the Colombian government
Speaker 1: didn't go for it. One rumored reason for the rejection,
Speaker 1: according to Kathleen Dalton, is that Germany may have sabotaged
Speaker 1: the U. S s relationship with Colombia. They allegedly did
Speaker 1: so by spreading stories that Americans back home were prejudiced
Speaker 1: towards Colombians and routinely referred to them by a particular
Speaker 1: racial slur, which some claim may have been enough to
Speaker 1: sour the country on dealing with the United States. Dalton
Speaker 1: also says rumors abounded that Germany was willing to fund
Speaker 1: the canal behind the scenes, which would have fed into
Speaker 1: increasing paranoia about German immigration, especially to Brazil. Roosevelt couldn't
Speaker 1: let another European power have so much say in Latin America,
Speaker 1: but Columbia still wasn't budging. He later told author William
Speaker 1: Roscoe Fair that trying to make an agreement with the
Speaker 1: rulers of Colombia was like trying to nail current jelly
Speaker 1: to the wall. There's a certain number of millions of
Speaker 1: dollars we can give to them, and then they'll cooperate
Speaker 1: because it's obviously going to be in their interest. But
Speaker 1: when they begin to to balk a little bit and
Speaker 1: don't want to just be rolled over, Roosevelt flies into
Speaker 1: a kind of righteousness rage. He's got a problem with
Speaker 1: righteousness anyway, and so then he decides to just do
Speaker 1: what it takes. Roosevelt and other purveyors of American might
Speaker 1: were none too pleased about Columbia's dismissal of the U.
Speaker 1: S S. Offer. Roosevelt is said to have remarked, those
Speaker 1: contemptible little creatures in boul Guton ought to understand how
Speaker 1: much they're jeopardizing things and imperiling their own future. In
Speaker 1: November nine three, Panama launched a rebellion against Colombia. Well
Speaker 1: Roosevelt didn't officially support the imminent rebellion. He deployed the
Speaker 1: USS Nashville and other craft to the Panama coast to
Speaker 1: block off any Colombian reinforcements and all but ensure that
Speaker 1: the rebellion would be a success and so there's one
Speaker 1: of the many, many, many insurrections happens in the Panamanian
Speaker 1: neck of Columbia, which is kind of physically isolated from
Speaker 1: the rest of the nation. The United States doesn't exactly
Speaker 1: foment it, but we do slyly encourage it. We recognize
Speaker 1: the new nation of Panama within hours. It's very unseemly um.
Speaker 1: The whole thing is the smells of real politique. I
Speaker 1: reject the notion that the United States created the the
Speaker 1: revolution in Panama, but it certainly made it clear that
Speaker 1: it would not mind the revolution and that it would
Speaker 1: be siding with the rebels against the kleptocracy as Roosevelt
Speaker 1: saw out of Columbia. On November eight three, the Hey
Speaker 1: Bunovaria Treaty was signed and then ratified a few months later,
Speaker 1: giving the United States possession of the Panama Canal zone
Speaker 1: for ten million dollars and two d and fifty thousand
Speaker 1: dollars annually beginning nine years later. Roosevelt got roasted. Dalton
Speaker 1: writes that the Senate accused him of usurping Congress's war powers,
Speaker 1: though they apparently weren't angry enough to vote against the treaty.
Speaker 1: It passed the Senate sixty six to fourteen. Colorado Senator
Speaker 1: Henry Teller basically called Roosevelt a thief, saying, you have
Speaker 1: no right to take Columbia's land and the interest of civilization,
Speaker 1: that is the robbers claim we want it, and therefore
Speaker 1: we take it. The papers also got in on the action,
Speaker 1: with the Chicago American calling Roosevelt's actions a rough riding
Speaker 1: assault upon another republic over the shattered wreckage of international
Speaker 1: law and diplomatic usage. Even roosevelt Attorney General Philander Knox
Speaker 1: couldn't resist ribbing Roosevelt a bit joe, that he shouldn't
Speaker 1: let so great an achievement suffer from any taint of legality.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was unapologetic. He would later say that if Panama
Speaker 1: hadn't revolted on its own, he would have asked Congress
Speaker 1: to invade. In a speech at the University of California
Speaker 1: in nineteen eleven, he continued to defend his strategy for
Speaker 1: securing the canal, saying, if I had followed traditional conservative methods,
Speaker 1: I would have submitted a dignified state paper of probably
Speaker 1: two hundred pages to Congress, and the debate on it
Speaker 1: would have been going on yet, but I took the
Speaker 1: canal zone and let Congress debate. And while the debate
Speaker 1: goes on, the canal does also. The fact is he
Speaker 1: hastened that project by years probably, and it all kind
Speaker 1: of worked out later after he left office. The Taft
Speaker 1: and Wilson administrations um essentially apologized to Columbia and offered
Speaker 1: economic recompense for the high handedness of what Roosevelt had done.
Speaker 1: And this threw him into a powering rage. This was this,
Speaker 1: This is one of the most hurtful things in the
Speaker 1: course of his life. And his view was, don't you
Speaker 1: don't do that. You don't ever, you don't ever after
Speaker 1: the fact come back and say, well, my predecessor was
Speaker 1: a hothead or an imperialist, and we're now going to
Speaker 1: compensate you. That that that's essentially an expost factor vote
Speaker 1: of no confidence to the Roosevelt administration. That's unfair. He
Speaker 1: wasn't called upon to testify. Um that is that. It
Speaker 1: is that and he was deeply offended by this, and
Speaker 1: it's part of what drove him to try to get
Speaker 1: back into power. In Roosevelt would continue to flex us
Speaker 1: might across Latin America for the remainder of his time
Speaker 1: in office. By this time, he saw debt as one
Speaker 1: of the biggest threats to the US is interest in
Speaker 1: the America's and not US debt, but instead debt that
Speaker 1: Latin and South American countries owed to European powers. Foreign
Speaker 1: debts could be used as a pretext for invasion. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: feared that too much economic turmoil could lead to military
Speaker 1: intervention and colonization of the indebted countries to a European
Speaker 1: power like the UK, France, and Germany. He felt that
Speaker 1: things got perilously close during a debt crisis in Venezuela
Speaker 1: in nineteen o two and oh three, which led to
Speaker 1: a blockade of the country by the United Kingdom, Germany,
Speaker 1: and Italy. While there was no seizure of the country,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt was on alert. He wasn't about to let Europe
Speaker 1: have any influence on his side of the globe. His
Speaker 1: solution was to establish the Roosevelt corollary to the Monroe Doctrine.
Speaker 1: The Monroe Doctrine was a policy adopted in eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: three that boiled down to this the United States would
Speaker 1: intervene in any European attempts at colonizing an independent state
Speaker 1: in North or South America. The corollary was declared by
Speaker 1: Roosevelt to Congress in nineteen o four. It stated that
Speaker 1: not only could the US intervene in any colonization attempts
Speaker 1: from Europe, but it could also step in when a
Speaker 1: nation's wrongdoing or impotence had invited foreign aggression to the
Speaker 1: detriment of the entire body of American nations. In essence,
Speaker 1: the United States would prevent European intervention by intervening before
Speaker 1: there was even a crisis. In his autobiography, Roosevelt said
Speaker 1: that nine tenths of wisdom is to be wise in
Speaker 1: time and at the right time, explaining that the entirety
Speaker 1: of his foreign policy was based on intelligent forethought and
Speaker 1: decisive action before any crisis could pop up, which he
Speaker 1: said would make it improbable that we would run into
Speaker 1: serious trouble. So afterwards, when rumors were swirling that Europeans
Speaker 1: were going to collect on their debt in the Dominican
Speaker 1: Republic through the use of military force, Roosevelt sent naval
Speaker 1: ships to the country and to control of the customs
Speaker 1: house there. The US government began collecting taxes to repay
Speaker 1: what was owed, keeping forty percent for the Dominican Republic's expenses,
Speaker 1: while the remainder would be used to pay off the debt.
Speaker 1: If you're going to protect the Western Hemisphere from European colonization,
Speaker 1: if you're going, in the age of steam and railroads,
Speaker 1: to protect the Monroe Doctrine, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: have the Roosevelt corollary because those nations do misbehave. And
Speaker 1: if if we don't want Germany and England to come
Speaker 1: in and um and and slap them around, then we're
Speaker 1: going to have to police those countries. The policy was
Speaker 1: popular among expansionists, but that's about where its popularity ended.
Speaker 1: In Latin America, it was seen as a gross overstep
Speaker 1: of authority, and in the years that followed Roosevelt's presidency,
Speaker 1: growing hostilities would lead the US to get involved in
Speaker 1: a number of armed conflicts in Latin America, most notably
Speaker 1: Nicaragua and Haiti. It would be Franklin Roosevelt who would
Speaker 1: backtrack on the Roosevelt corollary with the Good Neighbor Policy
Speaker 1: in N three, which promised more trade and dialogue to
Speaker 1: stabilize Latin America rather than military might. This would be
Speaker 1: formalized in the Monte Vido Convention, which proclaimed no state
Speaker 1: has the right to intervene in the internal or external
Speaker 1: affairs of another. During the first few years of his presidency,
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt had firmly established a pseudo imperialistic strategy for
Speaker 1: dealing with Latin America and the Pacific. But he'd soon
Speaker 1: be up against drama on the other side of the globe,
Speaker 1: and at home, we'll be right back. We've talked a
Speaker 1: lot in this episode about how t R spoke softly
Speaker 1: and carried a big stick abroad. But you can't go
Speaker 1: up against the whole world without having a few battles
Speaker 1: at home. So I want to take a quick aside
Speaker 1: to talk about one instance in which he used his
Speaker 1: big stick on US soil. It started in two went
Speaker 1: around a hundred forty seven thousand workers from the United
Speaker 1: Mine Workers of America Union in eastern Pennsylvania went on strike.
Speaker 1: These miners specialized in anthracite coal, which was the main
Speaker 1: heat source for cities in the eastern United States during
Speaker 1: the early twentieth century. A labor strike usually wouldn't fall
Speaker 1: under the purview of the President of the United States,
Speaker 1: but the prospect of a coal shortage was different. Concerns
Speaker 1: rose that homes would go heatless, and as the strike
Speaker 1: headed into the latter months of the year with winter looming,
Speaker 1: the president feared widespread rioting by heatless homeowners could have
Speaker 1: rupted around the country if action wasn't taken. So Roosevelt
Speaker 1: brought representatives from the coal mines, railroads, and labor to
Speaker 1: the White House and told them basically that they were
Speaker 1: going to have to work it out. Jenkinson explains that
Speaker 1: Roosevelt also told them that he would be creating a
Speaker 1: commission to come up with recommendations, and that those recommendations
Speaker 1: would be accepted or else. The captains of industry said, no,
Speaker 1: there's just no way we're doing that. That's not how
Speaker 1: it works. Rolls outside, Well, that's how it spider work.
Speaker 1: I'm going to send in US troops to run the
Speaker 1: coal mines if necessary, but I'm not going to let
Speaker 1: the people of the United States um frees to death
Speaker 1: in this coming winter because you all can't work this out.
Speaker 1: And so there's your choice. You either take the commission
Speaker 1: and abide by its findings, or I'm gonna do what
Speaker 1: has to be done, which is to secure the the
Speaker 1: distribution infrastructure of coal, which is how the nation heats
Speaker 1: its homes. Roosevelt's commission that helped settle the dispute was
Speaker 1: made possible by JP Morgan, who worked with TRS then
Speaker 1: Secretary of War Allie, who route to draft the proposal
Speaker 1: plan for the commission. The mining operators accepted the plan
Speaker 1: for the commission, which would have members chosen by Roosevelt.
Speaker 1: By the end of October, it was agreed that the
Speaker 1: miners would go back to work and the commission would
Speaker 1: be get it to investigation into the situation, which included
Speaker 1: three months of meetings, endless interviews from both sides, and
Speaker 1: more than ten thousand pages of testimony. In the end,
Speaker 1: the commission settled on a verdict. The workers would get
Speaker 1: a ten percent increase in pay, not they wanted, and
Speaker 1: their work day would be reduced from ten hours to nine,
Speaker 1: not the eight hours they'd hoped for, so they didn't
Speaker 1: see all of their demands met. The intervention and subsequent
Speaker 1: mediation from the federal government helped the workers get a
Speaker 1: far fairer hearing than they likely would have otherwise and
Speaker 1: avoided the growing violence that so many strikes eventually led to.
Speaker 1: At the time. Just like he proved on the global stage,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt wasn't afraid to use the power of the presidency
Speaker 1: in unprecedented ways when he felt action needed to be taken.
Speaker 1: Here's Colinane effectively, Roosevelt believed that the president could act
Speaker 1: as a mediator or arbitrator between capital and labor, and
Speaker 1: that he thought that there was excesses on both sides there.
Speaker 1: I think tr was a particularly good arbitrator. Okay, now
Speaker 1: back to the rest of the world. Roosevelt had proven
Speaker 1: that he was a skilled arbitrator at home, but in
Speaker 1: nineteen o five he faced a challenge that tested those
Speaker 1: skills in foreign policy, the Russo Japanese War. The conflict
Speaker 1: called for him to take on a new role, not
Speaker 1: as a man who wanted to start wars, but one
Speaker 1: who stopped them. As Americans, we weren't involved directly in
Speaker 1: the Russell Japanese War, but I've heard it described as
Speaker 1: World War zero. It was. It was an early mechanized war.
Speaker 1: That's Tyler caliberta education technician at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.
Speaker 1: Japanese and Russians were killing each other in great numbers.
Speaker 1: They were um sending soldiers to the front by rail car,
Speaker 1: and it took place in nineteen o five, so I
Speaker 1: mean it's only about ten years before the First World War.
Speaker 1: The conflict between Japan and Russia involved the mutual interest
Speaker 1: in the lands of Manchuria and Korea. Russia saw control
Speaker 1: of this region because of its warm water ports, the
Speaker 1: Tree Siberian ports always had to close during the icy winters.
Speaker 1: To avoid a military conflict, Japan had originally proposed that
Speaker 1: Russia keep its interests in Manchuria while Japan kept influence
Speaker 1: over Korea. Negotiations broke down, though, and Japan officially started
Speaker 1: the war on February eighth, nineteen o four, with a
Speaker 1: surprise attack on a Russian fleet at Port Arthur, Manchuria.
Speaker 1: The war raged throughout nineteen o four, with Russia being
Speaker 1: handed one humiliating defeat after another. Japan's highly disciplined and
Speaker 1: organized navy got the world's attention, But despite the fact
Speaker 1: that Japan seemed to be winning the war, the Empire
Speaker 1: was running out of money and had discreetly reached out
Speaker 1: through an intermediary to see if Roosevelt and the US
Speaker 1: would act as a mediator to help broker peace between
Speaker 1: the two sides. Roosevelt seized the opportunity, but, as historian
Speaker 1: Edmund Morris writes, if he was to be a peacemaker,
Speaker 1: he could not let the Czar think he had solicited
Speaker 1: the job. Roosevelt told his Secretary of State John Hay
Speaker 1: not to make it look like he was outright offering
Speaker 1: his help. He wanted to end up fighting, though rose
Speaker 1: Veld had grown uncomfortable with Japan's dominance of the war.
Speaker 1: A decisive defeat of Russia, an embarrassment of such a
Speaker 1: prideful empire, could destabilize the whole political scene in the Pacific,
Speaker 1: and what would that look like for America, which had
Speaker 1: just taken its first steps into the region. Here's Jenkinson,
Speaker 1: and Roosevelt realizes, whenever that happens, this leads to trouble.
Speaker 1: When this happens, this, this destabilizes the world and leads
Speaker 1: to more conflict than maybe a larger conflict. So he
Speaker 1: wants America to get into the arena. So he thinks,
Speaker 1: look at this, here's this moment where I understand this.
Speaker 1: The rest of the world is too cynical and jaded
Speaker 1: to really know what to do here, So I'm gonna
Speaker 1: do this kind of impulsive, idealistic thing. I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna offer to bring the belligerents to the United States,
Speaker 1: to this neutral country, and I'm going to say, will
Speaker 1: provide the the foundation, the platform where you can work
Speaker 1: this out. And it's a it's hard for us to
Speaker 1: realize how big a deal this was. This would be
Speaker 1: like Vietnam offering to step in unsettled dispute between the
Speaker 1: United States and Iran, and the rest of the world
Speaker 1: will just sneer and think, what, who are these people
Speaker 1: to think? You know what, you have no standing? Who
Speaker 1: what a what a ridiculous gambit that is. But there
Speaker 1: was a problem. Russia's are Nicholas the second wasn't budging.
Speaker 1: The word just compounded Russia's domestic issues. Nicholas was increasingly
Speaker 1: unpopular back home, and an anti autocrat sentiment had been
Speaker 1: spreading throughout the country ever since his coronation, fanned by
Speaker 1: the upstart Socialist Revolutionary Party. Peace talks at such time
Speaker 1: would look like a Japanese victory, and the Czar couldn't
Speaker 1: give any more ammunition to those salivating for revolution. The
Speaker 1: pride was there, but in the face of so many
Speaker 1: defeats by the Japanese. The logic was not the Czar
Speaker 1: is a preposterous little creature. As the absolute autocrat of
Speaker 1: one hundred and fifty million people, he is unable to
Speaker 1: make war, and he is now on a b to
Speaker 1: make peace, Roosevelt wrote to Hey. But by the start
Speaker 1: of nineteen o five, peace talks became the only way
Speaker 1: out for Nicholas. In January, the Russian Revolution of five began,
Speaker 1: partly brought on by the abject failure of the Japanese campaign.
Speaker 1: Worse yet came the disastrous loss of the Battle of
Speaker 1: Tsushima in May, resulting in a Russian loss of four
Speaker 1: thousand men and almost the entire fleet compared to Japan's
Speaker 1: a hundred and seventeen men and three sunken torpedo boats.
Speaker 1: By August, both Russia and Japan were ready to talk,
Speaker 1: and the first item on the agenda was for both
Speaker 1: parties to meet separately with the President at his home
Speaker 1: and Oyster Bay to discuss their desired terms for ending
Speaker 1: the war. Japan came first, sending diplomat to Tura Kimura
Speaker 1: and to Kira Kugoro, Japanese ambassador to the United States,
Speaker 1: to Sagamore Hill. They were followed a few days later
Speaker 1: by Russian diplomat Baron Rahman Romano Vich von Roisen and
Speaker 1: Syrigi Yulovich Vita. On August five, the two sides finally
Speaker 1: met in person on the presidential yacht, the U. S. S. Mayflower,
Speaker 1: which was anchored in Oyster Bay, for lunch. The Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was privately unsure that peace would be made, he warmly
Speaker 1: welcomed the two sides. The lunch was just as awkward
Speaker 1: as you may imagine, at least for the Japanese and Russians.
Speaker 1: According to Marris, Roosevelt alone seemed at ease. The meal
Speaker 1: was a cold lunch with even colder wine, a welcome
Speaker 1: spread for a hot summer day, And before they dug in,
Speaker 1: Roosevelt offered a Champagne toast, which he asked to be unanswered.
Speaker 1: I drink to the welfare and the prosperity of the sovereigns,
Speaker 1: and to the peoples, to the two great nations whose
Speaker 1: representatives had met one another on this ship. It is
Speaker 1: my most earnest hope and prayer, in the interest not
Speaker 1: only of these two great powers, but of all civilized mankind,
Speaker 1: that a just and lasting piece may speedily be concluded
Speaker 1: between them. After lunch, the two sides took a formal photograph.
Speaker 1: Then the Japanese went to a separate ship, and both sides,
Speaker 1: along with the Americans, sailed to the Navy yard at Portsmouth,
Speaker 1: New Hampshire the official talks. It was a remote site
Speaker 1: that was chosen for its peace and security over the
Speaker 1: scorching temperatures and gaggles of reporters that you'd find in
Speaker 1: d C. In August later, at Sagamore Hill, Roosevelt said,
Speaker 1: I think we are off to a good start. I
Speaker 1: know perfectly well the whole world is watching me, and
Speaker 1: the condemnations that will come down on me if the
Speaker 1: conference failed will be worldwide. Two but that's all right.
Speaker 1: The talks immediately hit a deadlock. Vita, who was acting
Speaker 1: on the Czar's wishes, would not bend to the Japanese.
Speaker 1: There would be no reimbursing the Japanese for war costs,
Speaker 1: and no forfeiture of territory, especially the Russian island of
Speaker 1: sak Holland, which Japan had ceased during the war. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: knew that the talks would go nowhere if Russia was
Speaker 1: not willing to sacrifice its honor in any way, he
Speaker 1: continued to grow frustrated with Russia's attitude, letting slip one
Speaker 1: fantasy he had of grabbing the Czar and his ministers
Speaker 1: and marching them to the end of Long Island so
Speaker 1: he could run them violently down a steep place into
Speaker 1: the sea. Soon, Roosevelt shed his role as a neutral
Speaker 1: mediator and began taking a more active role in the negotiations,
Speaker 1: doing so in the same frank, unpredictable style that had
Speaker 1: both thrilled and exhausted so many in Washington. Late one evening,
Speaker 1: Russia's negotiator, Baron Roisen, got an unexpected wake up call
Speaker 1: at two am from Third Assistant Secretary of State Herbert Pierce,
Speaker 1: ordering him to Sagamore Hill to meet with the President
Speaker 1: that afternoon. According to Morris, Royson found Tier decked out
Speaker 1: in white flannel, absorbed in a game of tennis, but
Speaker 1: rather than put his racket down and get to the
Speaker 1: business of peacemaking, the President divided his attention between the
Speaker 1: action on and off the court, returning to the game
Speaker 1: at nearly every pause in the conversation. According to historian
Speaker 1: Stanley Wine, It's likely that this conversation on the tennis
Speaker 1: court lasted around ninety minutes. And while Roosevelt did reassure
Speaker 1: Roisen that Chapan would seed too many of Russia's demands,
Speaker 1: he also said that it might be tougher to split
Speaker 1: the island of Saklin without some sort of compensation for Japan.
Speaker 1: So Roosevelt countered suggesting that Russia pay for it's half
Speaker 1: in the north, while Japan would remain in the south.
Speaker 1: This would leave Russia with some, but not all, of
Speaker 1: the territory it wanted, and Japan would get some money
Speaker 1: out of the deal, though not an official reimbursement. Again,
Speaker 1: the idea was rejected. The Czar drew a hard line
Speaker 1: that no compensation was to be paid, and with a
Speaker 1: little digging, you can see why Japan was seeking one
Speaker 1: point two billion yen, an amount that made even the
Speaker 1: disgruntled Russian people saide with their's are. While Japan was
Speaker 1: winning the war, it was hurting financially, leaving them with
Speaker 1: little power at the negotiating table. So what happens when
Speaker 1: neither side wants to budge, Well, nothing, and I mean
Speaker 1: that in the most literal way possible. At one point,
Speaker 1: Vita and Comra officially had nothing left to discuss. Russia
Speaker 1: refused to pay Japan for its war costs, and Japan
Speaker 1: wouldn't move ahead with the talks if no money came
Speaker 1: their way. So the men sat across from each other,
Speaker 1: slowly taking drags of their cigarettes, not saying a word
Speaker 1: for eight agonizing minutes. That silence was the sound of
Speaker 1: the Russo Japanese war dragging on and on and on.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's previous fear that the failure of this conference would
Speaker 1: become a worldwide failure on his part seemed to be
Speaker 1: becoming a reality. On Monday, August, the President realized there
Speaker 1: was nothing more he could do. Rumors swirled that the
Speaker 1: Russians were asking for their hotel bill so they could
Speaker 1: get out of Portsmouth. Then suddenly, on August, Vita entered
Speaker 1: another negotiation meeting with a white piece of paper. It
Speaker 1: contained Russia's final concessions. There would be no payment, but
Speaker 1: Japan would have South Sakkalin if Russia could have the North.
Speaker 1: For Roosevelt, this was the only chance to end a
Speaker 1: war that neither country could even afford to keep fighting.
Speaker 1: So he went to the Japanese and he said, look, yes,
Speaker 1: I know you want indemnities, and I know you you
Speaker 1: want punitive damages and territorial aggrandousment and and so on.
Speaker 1: I get it, and you probably deserve it, but you can't.
Speaker 1: I'm going to insist that you cut the deal here
Speaker 1: because if you don't, if you cut too severe a deal,
Speaker 1: all you're doing is planting the seed of a much
Speaker 1: more severe conflict down the lines. So you're gonna have
Speaker 1: to swallow your national pride, and I know it's going
Speaker 1: to be awful, but if you do it, you're going
Speaker 1: to be better off in the long run, and the
Speaker 1: world's going to be more stable. And so that's what
Speaker 1: I'm asking you to do. The Japanese accepted the terms,
Speaker 1: and the Treaty of Portsmouth was officially signed on September five.
Speaker 1: The treaty resulted in the recognition of Japan's interest in
Speaker 1: Korea and greatly expanded their power in South Manchuria, including
Speaker 1: over key railways. Russia's power in the Pacific was now
Speaker 1: a fraction of what it had been, but in the end,
Speaker 1: Thessar didn't have to open his wallet, in large part
Speaker 1: for his work as a mediator to bring peace between
Speaker 1: the two nations. Roosevelt was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize
Speaker 1: in nineteen o six, making him the first American to
Speaker 1: win a Nobel prize of any kind. Mars would say
Speaker 1: Roosevelt Peace was made possible because of his inexplicable ability
Speaker 1: to impose his singular charge upon plural power by sheer
Speaker 1: force and moral purpose, by clarity of perception, by mastery
Speaker 1: of detail, and benign manipulation of men. The most congratulatory
Speaker 1: was Roosevelt himself, who gleefully exclaimed, it is a mighty
Speaker 1: good thing for Russia, and a mighty good thing for Japan,
Speaker 1: and a mighty good thing for me too. The world
Speaker 1: was shocked, and they realized this country has arrived, and
Speaker 1: this guy is one of the most interesting leaders on
Speaker 1: the world stage, and he has moxie, but he also
Speaker 1: has the capacity to fulfill the big slopping claims that
Speaker 1: he's making. And so this was this was another great
Speaker 1: momentum in the history of this country, in a great
Speaker 1: moment for Theodore Roosevelt. And and if if he had
Speaker 1: said to a thousand advisers, should we try to get
Speaker 1: involved in this Russo Japanese conflict, they would have said
Speaker 1: that has nothing to do with us. Um, they're probably
Speaker 1: gonna swat you away. We could just wind up being humiliated.
Speaker 1: No good is going to come with this. Um. We
Speaker 1: gotta we got to keep our focus on the real
Speaker 1: stuff we're trying to do here. But Roosevelt just had
Speaker 1: this big soul and he realized that if we can
Speaker 1: pull this off, the world was going to look at
Speaker 1: us in a different way. And he was absolutely right.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt knew the power of the Japanese wielded, and he
Speaker 1: knew that maintaining relations with them was integral to America's interests.
Speaker 1: In nineteen o six, a domestic decision out of his
Speaker 1: hands threatened that relationship. It happened when the San Francisco
Speaker 1: School Board decided to segregate schools in the district by
Speaker 1: separating Japanese students from white ones. The order was the
Speaker 1: result of hostility stemming from the ever growing Japanese population
Speaker 1: that was entering the country for work at the time.
Speaker 1: The order incensed Roosevelt, flying into a rage. He threatened
Speaker 1: to do anything and everything, from suing the Board of
Speaker 1: Education to sending troops to San Francisco to ensure the
Speaker 1: segregation wouldn't last. Japan made it known that they were
Speaker 1: upset with the ruling, and anti American protests were beginning
Speaker 1: to erupt throughout the country. If there was a war,
Speaker 1: it would be one of the United States wasn't ready
Speaker 1: to fight. Tier knew he had to fix it. Roosevelt
Speaker 1: ordered the mayor of San Francisco and the school board
Speaker 1: to the White House and convinced them to rescind the order,
Speaker 1: assuring them that the federal government would take care of
Speaker 1: the issue. He also worked through the Japanese diplomats to
Speaker 1: come to an agreement. In nineteen o six, tr wrote
Speaker 1: to his Secretary of Commerce that he had spoken with
Speaker 1: the Japanese ambassador about the issue, telling him that the
Speaker 1: only way to prevent constant friction between the United States
Speaker 1: and Japan was to restrict immigration of Japanese citizens into
Speaker 1: the US two people like businessmen and students, and to
Speaker 1: keep Japanese laborers out, whom he referred to repeatedly using
Speaker 1: a racial slur. I'm not going to quote Roosevelt directly
Speaker 1: here because of that, but instead paraphrase. According to Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: the ambassador agreed with him and said that he had
Speaker 1: always been against letting Japanese laborers come into Hawaii in
Speaker 1: the US. Roosevelt worried that it would be hard to
Speaker 1: get the Japanese to agree to it because of what
Speaker 1: had happened in San Francisco, but he hoped that his
Speaker 1: annual message would smooth over their feelings so they would
Speaker 1: have sent to the policy. At any rate, He wrote,
Speaker 1: I shall do my best to bring this about. The
Speaker 1: result is what is now known as the Gentleman's Agreement
Speaker 1: of nineteen o seven. In it, the United States agreed
Speaker 1: to repeal the discriminatory school practice and the Japanese government
Speaker 1: agreed to restrict issuing passports to laborers who wished to
Speaker 1: leave to work in the United States. Here's Colinane. The
Speaker 1: Gentleman's has been viewed as a racialist policy, and I
Speaker 1: think that's only part right, and not even a large part.
Speaker 1: So Roosevelt's policy was racialists, and that it locked the
Speaker 1: Japanese out of the United States, But that wasn't the
Speaker 1: primary reason why the Gentleman's Agreement was fashioned. It was
Speaker 1: because Roosevelt was worried about labor in on the West Coast, particularly,
Speaker 1: and he was worried about labor unions and also he
Speaker 1: didn't want to up wealthy Japanese from coming to the
Speaker 1: United States. He thought, well, love the Japanese coming. We're
Speaker 1: basically a form of direct foreign investment, and he encouraged that.
Speaker 1: So the Gentleman's agreement is really locking out Japanese labor.
Speaker 1: And that was not the same for other countries like China.
Speaker 1: He believed in excluding the Chinese entirely, whereas he saw
Speaker 1: the Japanese as being of two classes, the working class
Speaker 1: and the elite like him. Uh And that that sort
Speaker 1: of positive regard for the Japanese plays out in a
Speaker 1: number of letters at Roosevelt Rites, and you know he
Speaker 1: speaks about the Japanese with a with a warm sentiment,
Speaker 1: where he doesn't talk like that about the Chinese. Thomas
Speaker 1: Dyer points out that the key difference in roosevelt strategy
Speaker 1: was usually based on his perception of the race he
Speaker 1: was dealing with. Tier had respect for Japan, especially their military,
Speaker 1: and saw the country as a potential challenger for global
Speaker 1: supremacy down the road, whereas he called the leaders and
Speaker 1: citizens and countries like Colombia and the Philippines backwards people
Speaker 1: and savages, among other things, making them fair game for
Speaker 1: American imperialistic desires. According to dire, was there a difference
Speaker 1: in the way t r handled a situation based on
Speaker 1: sort of the leader of the country or his perception
Speaker 1: of the country, Because if you look at how he
Speaker 1: handled you know, what happened with Colombia and the Panama Canal,
Speaker 1: it's very, very different from how he handled you know,
Speaker 1: what was happening with Russia and Japan. Well, he's a racist,
Speaker 1: there's no question about it. I mean, you can tiptoe
Speaker 1: around this, but he was a racist. And what was
Speaker 1: kind of a pseudo scientific way, he believed that there
Speaker 1: was a racial hierarchy, that there was a there was
Speaker 1: a hierarchy, and at the top of that hierarchy were
Speaker 1: the Anglo Saxon people and then the two Topic people, um,
Speaker 1: and then it worked its way down and at the
Speaker 1: very bottom were indigenous peoples and New Zealand and in
Speaker 1: the American West and in South Africa, and just above
Speaker 1: those indigenous peoples were Africans. The Roosevelt definitely believed in
Speaker 1: a hierarchy, and he believed that the white Anglo Saxon
Speaker 1: people's of the world on moss as a culture, as
Speaker 1: a civilization, or as a tribe or at the top
Speaker 1: of the heap, and that other people's were somewhere down.
Speaker 1: The pathy interesting thing is that he put the Japanese
Speaker 1: very high in this hierarchy, above some Europeans, but below
Speaker 1: what he would have regarded as the most advanced Europeans.
Speaker 1: And that's why he found them the Japanese so fascinating,
Speaker 1: where it's the Chinese he would have put, and the
Speaker 1: Filipinos much lower on those scales. And so when he's
Speaker 1: dealing with Canada or England, or France or Germany, he
Speaker 1: has a certain way of going about things because they're
Speaker 1: part of the club. And we still have this in
Speaker 1: the G seven. We say it's economically based, but it
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with other dynamics too. Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: use on race are, in a word, complex. On certain issues,
Speaker 1: he certainly earned his progressive reputation. He supported ending segregation
Speaker 1: in New York public schools during his time as governor,
Speaker 1: famously invited book Or T. Washington to dine at the
Speaker 1: White House when he was president, and fought for a
Speaker 1: square deal for all Americans. When you dig deeper, though
Speaker 1: many of his opinions are undeniably discriminatory and for some
Speaker 1: parts of the world, destructive. It's an aspect of Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: legacy that historians still grapple with. How could a president
Speaker 1: as forward thinking in some ways has such a blind
Speaker 1: spot on the issue of race. It's easy to explain
Speaker 1: it away as t r simply being a product of
Speaker 1: his time, or you could go the other way and
Speaker 1: paint him as a racist with a broad brush. But
Speaker 1: those are both oversimplifications, and as we've seen, nothing about
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt or his views is simple. We'll be tackling
Speaker 1: some of these difficult questions in a future episode. What's
Speaker 1: undeniable is that Theodore Roosevelt and his policies had a
Speaker 1: lasting impact on affairs both at home and overseas. He
Speaker 1: took a country hell bent on staying isolated and turned
Speaker 1: it into a dominant force on the seas. He stopped
Speaker 1: wars between world powers and carved a canal that united
Speaker 1: two oceans, something that was seen as a fantasy only
Speaker 1: a few years prior. Works in all, Theodore Roosevelt went
Speaker 1: beyond the political battleground of Washington, d c. To announce
Speaker 1: to the world that America was now a power to
Speaker 1: be reckoned with and if it had to it was
Speaker 1: ready to fight. He brought America into the world as
Speaker 1: a central player, and we've been that central player ever since.
Speaker 1: History Verses is hosted by me Aaron McCarthy. This episode
Speaker 1: was written by Ja Serafino, with research by me and
Speaker 1: additional research by Michael Salgarolo, fact checking by Austin Thompson,
Speaker 1: field recording by John Mayer. Joe Wigan voiced Theodore Roosevelt
Speaker 1: in this episode. The executive producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas,
Speaker 1: and Tyler Lang. The supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. The
Speaker 1: show is edited by Dylan Fagan and lowbra Ante. Special
Speaker 1: thanks to Clay Jenkinson, Michael Collinane, Tyler Caliberta, Jeffrey Waow,
Speaker 1: and the Theodore Roosevelt Center at Dickinson State University. To
Speaker 1: learn more about this episode and Theodore Roosevelt, check out
Speaker 1: our website at mental Flass dot com, Slash History Versus
Speaker 1: that's Mental flash dot com. Slash h I S t
Speaker 1: O R y vs. History Versus is a production of
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