The Incumbent vs the Insurgent Roosevelt vs LaFollette, a book review with commentary

Insurgents, Incumbents and Political Change

A Review of Unreasonable Men, Theodore Roosevelt and the Republican Rebels Who Created Progressive Politics, (Palgrave/Macmillan, 2014) by Michael Wolraich, with additional commentary.

By Dan Riker

In Unreasonable Men Michael Wolraich brilliantly portrays the differences between insurgents and incumbents, between those who seek power and those who have it. With the skill of a good novelist, he brings the people and events alive in the first 12 years of the 20^th Century when an enormous political revolution occurred in the United States. It was brought about by a small group of progressive insurgents, but eventually led by one who first had been an incumbent.

The principal characters in this account are Theodore Roosevelt and Robert LaFollette, but Wolraich also brings many of the other key players alive in the narrative, especially the powerful Republican leaders of Congress, Rhode Island Sen. Nelson Aldrich and House Speaker Joe Cannon, for whom a House office building is named. His vivid descriptions of the people, places and events are so good that they sometimes evoke the smells of cigars and sweaty wool suits.

Wisconsin Republican Robert LaFollette is the prime insurgent, who eventually coins the name of his movement, the “progressive” movement. He won the governorship of Wisconsin by defeating an entrenched machine. With his supporters in complete control of that state’s government, a series of reforms were instituted that eventually spread across the nation. The defining principles of his reform movement were that government should serve all the people, and not the special interests, that public officials had to be honest, intelligent and competent, that government should help to improve the lives of the people, and it should prevent monopolies, price-fixing and fraudulent behavior among businesses. Then, as a senator from Wisconsin LaFollette organized an insurgency inside Congress, then controlled by big business interests.

Theodore Roosevelt became President in 1901 upon the assassination of President William McKinley. Right away he showed many of the characteristics of a progressive, even though the term was not yet in use. He won congressional approval of his Bureau of Corporations, the first effort by the federal government to regulate corporations. He supported labor unions, urging businesses to give workers a “fair deal.” He became more assertive after winning re-election in 1904, but it was his determination to build a record of achievement as President that brought him into conflict with LaFollette.

Roosevelt was a pragmatist. He was willing to compromise to win congressional approval of portions of his program. Sometimes, he was willing to settle for far less than he originally proposed just so he could gain something. What made him dramatically different from every President since Lincoln was that he viewed his position as President as both the custodian of the people and their servant – a very progressive idea. He adopted concepts from Lincoln and Andrew Jackson that the President, as the only nationally elected official, owed a duty to all the people, and was responsible for their welfare. As such, he changed the Presidency and the way the people viewed it. He became the most popular President since Jackson, drawing enormous crowds when he traveled. He desperately wanted his record as President to justify his popularity. He knew he could not achieve that record if he sided with LaFollette’s insurgents.

Roosevelt angered LaFollette when he compromised with the business interests who controlled Congress. Senators then were elected by state legislatures, not by the people. Progressives eventually would change that with a Constitutional amendment. A number of powerful senators had their own business interests that benefited directly or indirectly from their political activities, and they did little to hide their interests at a time when there were no conflict of interest laws.

LaFollette was playing a long game. He told Roosevelt that he did not care whether any of his reforms were passed. He urged Roosevelt to follow the same strategy. LaFollette kept introducing bills because he wanted the conservatives, known as the “standpatters” to be forced to vote against them. He wanted to build public opposition to the conservatives who controlled the Republican Party. He was helped by some of the famous “muckrakers,”who had exposed enormous amounts of government corruption, and had huge followings, including Lincoln Steffens and Ray Stannard Baker (who helped LaFollette write his Autobiography in 1911). Both admired LaFollette and became disillusioned with Roosevelt. LaFollette wanted the conservative Republicans defeated, and he promoted the direct primary idea so that Republican insurgents could run against them. The Tea Party did not invent this idea.

Support for the progressive cause grew substantially toward the end of the first decade of the 20^th Century. That was when Roosevelt, now out of office, openly became a progressive insurgent. His groundbreaking “New Nationalism” speech in 1910 laid out a complete progressive program and set the stage for open conflict with LaFollette, who desperately wanted to run for President in 1912, but suspected Roosevelt also would run.

The first real indication that a revolution was about to occur was when the the Democrats won control of Congress in 1910 for the first time in 18 years, some with LaFollette’s help. They also won control of many state governments. Progressivism had spread across the country, and was particularly strong in the West. William Howard Taft succeeded Roosevelt as President in 1909, but he was not a successful President, even though he shared many progressive beliefs. He broke up more trusts than Roosevelt did. However, he was not an effective politician, and was easily outmaneuvered. It became clear, especially to him, that he would be defeated for re-election in 1912. But he did not want to be defeated for the Republican nomination, and the powerful business interests that still controlled much of the party machinery also did not want him defeated for the nomination, especially by either LaFollette, or Roosevelt.

For quite a period of time Roosevelt vacillated. He tried numerous times to meet with LaFollette, but LaFollette rebuffed him every time. Early in 1912, LaFollette had some kind breakdown while delivering a speech. He rambled and stumbled through a diatribe against all of his opponents, real and imagined, that went well past midnight. What happened was widely reported as a “nervous breakdown” that made him unfit for public office, and it destroyed his political career.

Roosevelt sought the Republican nomination and he won a large percentage of the delegates to the convention elected in primaries. But party bosses still selected most of the delegates and they made sure that Taft had a clear majority. Roosevelt’s supporters immediately decided to form the Progressive Party. Wolraich reveals how Roosevelt came up with the “Bull Moose” name, something that apparently eluded all of Roosevelt’s many previous biographers. It is just one of many episodes in this book that make it very enjoyable reading.

LaFollette did not support Roosevelt, or the new Progressive Party. He campaigned against Roosevelt in the general election. Woodrow Wilson won the election. Roosevelt came in second and Taft third.  The Socialist Eugene Debs also received nearly a million votes out of the 14 million cast, the highest percentage a socialist ever was to receive in a Presidential election. About 75 percent of the vote went to the three “progressive” candidates, Wilson, Roosevelt and Debts. It was the high water mark of what was to become the first progressive movement.

There is an interesting comparison between the Roosevelt-LaFollette conflict when Roosevelt was President and how many on the left feel conflicted about President Obama. Obama won huge victories in both of his elections, but has had to operate for most of his Presidency without Democratic control of both houses of Congress. His efforts to compromise with Republicans drew enormous criticism from many of his supporters, especially those on the left. Like Roosevelt, he has tried to have achievements in his Presidency, and he certainly has had some. He might have had many more if the Republicans had been willing to compromise.  That intransigence of the Republicans probably saved Obama from drawing greater anger from many of his supporters.

Roosevelt was the first modern President to believe that he had to build a record of achievement as President. Almost every President since him, except, perhaps for Warren Harding, has felt the same. Some have not had the same dedication to serving the people as he did, but every President has cared about his record.  But few Presidents have been able to achieve much without Congressional support.

A successful and dedicated insurgency can force change, can make a revolution, can destroy the old order, but when victory comes, and it is time to govern, the insurgent becomes the incumbent. The destructive tactics of an insurgent no longer work when there is a new order to build.