swing with violence the other way, so that my successor
as a wild radical will bring utter discredit on the reforms
by attempting to do too much, and especially by doing a
number of things that ought not to be done, thereby ensur-
ing a real reaction.

"But I am perfectly certain that in the end the Nation
will have to come to my policies, or substantially to my
policies, simply because the Republic can not endure unless
the governmental actions are founded on these policies,
for they represent nothing whatever but aggressive honesty
and fair treatment for all-not make-believe fair treatment,
but genuine fair treatment. I do not think that my poli-
cies had anything to do with producing the conditions
which brought on the panic; but I do think that very
possibly the assaults and exposures which I made, and
which were more or less successfully imitated in the several
States, have brought on the panic a year or two sooner
than would otherwise have been the case. The panic would
have been infinitely worse, however, had it been deferred.

"As for the New York financiers, their hangers-on, the innocent men whom they have deceived, or who follow them and the newspapers that they own or inspire, why, I have to expect that these people will attack me. Their hostility toward me is fundamental. I neither respect nor admire the huge moneyed men to whom money is the be-all and the end-all of existence; to whom the acquisition of untold millions is the supreme goal of life, and who are too often utterly indifferent as to how these millions are obtained. I thoroughly believe that the first duty of every man is to earn his own living, to pull his own weight, to support his own wife and family; but after this has been done, and he is able to keep his family according to his station and according to the tastes that have become a necessity to him, then I despise him if he does not treat other things as of more importance in his scheme of life than mere money getting; if he does not care for art, or literature, or science, or statecraft, or warcraft, or philanthropy-in

short for some form of service to his fellows, for some form of the kind of life which is alone worth living."

November 26, 1907.

To Mr. W. A. White, Editor, The Gazette, Emporia, Kansas:

It is to be expected as a matter of course that the corporation judge, the corporation senator and ex-senator, the big corporation attorney, the newspaper owned in or controlled from Wall Street will attack me. I should be very foolish if I expected anything else; I should be still more foolish if I were greatly disturbed over the attacks. If there is much depression, if we meet hard times, then a great number of honest and well-meaning people will gradually come to believe in the truth of these attacks, and I shall probably end my term of service as President under a more or less dark cloud of obloquy. If so, I shall be sorry, of course; but I shall neither regret what I have done nor alter my line of conduct in the least degree, nor yet be unduly cast down.

"As far as I am personally concerned, I am well ahead of the game, whatever happens. I have had an exceedingly good time; I have been exceedingly well treated by the American people; and I have enjoyed the respect of those for whose respect I care most. If for a moment I have to go under a cloud, why, it is all in the game. I am as sure as man can be of anything that I have been following the course which the best interests of this country demand; and under such circumstances, if I had known that the obloquy were to be permanent I should still not have altered this course. But I do not believe that it will be permanent, because I do not believe that there can be a permanent deviation from the lines of policy along which I have worked —that is, if the Republic is to endure at all. If there is such permanent deviation I shall esteem the calamity so great that any thought of my own reputation in the matter will be entirely swallowed up.'

November 27, 1907.

To Lawrence F. Abbott, The Outlook, New York. "I have been much amused by the decision of the State Court of Appeals in the recount bill. This was purely a personal measure of Governor Hughes'. While I did not think it the wise way to get at what he sought, and while both Root and I had advised against it, still I sympathized so thoroughly with his purpose that I hoped the bill would be declared constitutional. Root had said all along that it could not be so declared. Think of the yell that would have gone up from the capitalist press of New York City if any similar measure of mine had been declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court of the Nation!

"As you say, it is rather curious to realize that there are good men who actually do believe that I have been violating the law and the Constitution. They are usually somewhat puzzle-headed, as I found in talking to one of the most eminent bankers in New York the other day, who spoke of my 'illegal actions' not exactly with severity but with sorrow. I questioned him as to the illegal action in question, and found that what he meant was that I had been carrying on suits against Harriman and the Standard Oil Company! Mind you, this man was not an exception. When the Sun, the Times, the Evening Post, Harper's Weekly, the New York Herald, the New York World, and company, denounce me as doing something unconstitutional, they mean that I have succeeded in getting through laws which have been declared by the Supreme Court to be constitutional, and when they denounce my 'illegal actions' they usually refer to a lawsuit which has been begun by the Department of Justice.

"I enclose you a most striking decision which has just been rendered by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. You will see that this decision takes exactly the view which I have taken about the power of the Government under the interstate commerce act, and it even goes a little further than what I have said went, although not further than I implied. This again makes

rather ridiculous the attitude of the worthy people who have spoken of me as trying to usurp powers on behalf of the Federal Government. The great measure of my administration as Governor was the franchise tax. It was far more bitterly fought than the public utilities bill; and, mind you, it broke ground for the first time in New York in dealing with these big corporations, and it has been declared constitutional by the highest court in the land. So it is with the measures I have succeeded in getting through Congress while I have been President."

CHAPTER IV

INCIDENT OF THE TENNESSEE COAL AND
IRON COMPANY

THE panic in New York reached its height in November, 1907. The Knickerbocker Trust Company failed and there were heavy runs upon trust companies and other financial institutions. The President was in constant communication with the leaders in the financial world in the city, and both personally and through the Secretary of the Treasury sought by all legitimate means to arrest the panic before it extended to other sections of the country. Various methods of relief were granted by the Secretary of the Treasury on the President's authority, and finally an opportunity arrived when he was able to act in accordance with his pet doctrine of the "square deal" for everybody. He seized it with characteristic promptness and courage.

On November 4, 1907, Judge E. H. Gary and Henry C. Frick, on behalf of the Steel Corporation, sought and obtained an interview with the President, Secretary Root being present at the President's request. What occurred was at once communicated to the Attorney General in the following note which the President dictated in the presence of Messrs. Gary and Frick:

My dear Mr. Attorney-General:

November 4, 1907.

Judge E. H. Gary and Mr. H. C. Frick, on behalf of the Steel Corporation, have just called upon me. They state that there is a certain business firm (the name of which I have not been told, but which is of real importance in New York business circles), which will undoubtedly fail this week if help is not given. Among its assets are a majority of the securities of the Tennessee Coal Company. Application has been urgently made to the Steel Corporation to