Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-28T19:59:02.431Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Policy Leadership in the Progressive Presidency: The Case of Theodore Roosevelt's Naval Policy and His Search for Strategic Resources*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  16 December 2008

Peri E. Arnold
Peri E. Arnold
Affiliation:
University of Notre Dame
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

Theodore Roosevelt established a new, and puzzling, form of public policy leadership during his presidency. In this respect, Roosevelt's presidency breaks with past presidential practice. So marked is this change that it is commonly identified as a foreshadowing of the “modern presidency,” implying a path of development from Roosevelt's leadership practice to the institutionalized presidency at midcentury.

Type
Articles
Information
Studies in American Political Development , Volume 10 , Issue 2 , Fall 1996 , pp. 333 - 359
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1996

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1. Greenstein, Fred, “Toward a Modern Presidency,” in Greenstein, , ed., Leadership in the Modern Presidency (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988), 3–4Google Scholar.

2. Neustadt, Richard, Presidential Power (New York: The Free Press, 1990), 29Google Scholar.

3. Skowronek, Stephen, The Politics Presidents Make (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1993), esp. chap. 3Google Scholar.

4. Ellis, Richard J. and Kirk, Stephen, “Presidential Mandates in the Nineteenth Century: Conceptual Change and Institutional Development,” Studies in American Political Development 9 (Spring 1995), 117–86CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

5. See Milkis, Sidney, The President and the Parties (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993)Google Scholar, chap. 1.

6. Skowronek, The Politics Presidents Make, 19.

7. O'Connell, Robert, Sacred Vessels (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1991), 104Google Scholar.

8. White, Leonard D., The Republican Era (New York: Macmillan, 1958)Google Scholar, chap. 8.

9. Letter, Roosevelt to Lodge, Henry Cabot, September 15, 1897, Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, vol. 1 (New York: Charles Scribners, 1925), 276–77Google Scholar.

10. McCormick, Richard L., The Party Period and Public Policy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), 272Google Scholar.

11. See Eisenach, Eldon J., The Lost Promise of Progressivism (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 22–25Google Scholar.

12. Skowronek, Stephen, Building a New American State (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982), 19–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Eisenach, The Lost Promise of Progressivism, chap. 4.

13. Arnold, Peri E., “The Intellectual Roots of the Progressive Era Presidency,” The Miller Center Journal (Spring 1994), 25–34Google Scholar.

14. Wilson, Woodrow, Congressional Government (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1885)Google ScholarPubMed.

15. Wilson, Woodrow, Constitutional Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 1908), 81Google Scholar.

16. “The ‘Administration Party’ in Congress,” New York Times, July 10, 1902, 8.

17. See Schiesl, Martin, The Politics of Efficiency (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977)Google Scholar; Stettner, Edward A., Shaping Modern Liberalism: Herbert Croly and Progressive Thought (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1993), 58–66Google Scholar; Peri E. Arnold, “The Intellectual Roots of the Progressive Era Presidency.”

18. Roosevelt, Theodore, An Autobiography (New York: Macmillan, 1913), 388–89Google Scholar.

19. Moe, Terry, “The Politicized Presidency,” in Chubb, John and Peterson, Paul, eds., The New Direction in American Politics (Washington: Brookings Institution, 1985), 235–72Google Scholar.

20. Moe, “The Politicized Presidency,” 236–37.

21. Lindblom, Charles, “Still Muddling, Not Yet Through,” Public Administration Review (11/12 1979), 517–26Google Scholar.

22. See Burke, John P., The Institutional Presidency (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992), 24–52Google Scholar.

23. “National Defense,” New York Times, December 3, 1902, 8.

24. Roosevelt's correspondence with Lodge, Henry Cabot offers substantial evidence of Roosevelt's congressional lobbying activity throughout the 1890s in pursuit of naval expansion. Selections from the Correspondence of Theodore Roosevelt and Henry Cabot Lodge, vols. I and II (New York: Charles Scribners, 1925)Google Scholar. Were Roosevelt to have chosen just to seek congressional support for naval expansion through rhetorical appeals, he might have been constrained perhaps by the lack of a commitment to naval expansion in the 1900 Republican platform. However, his party was sufficiently in favor of imperial expansion and foreign trade to allow Roosevelt to claim a mandate for naval expansion. For the 1900 Republican platform, see Porter, Kirk H. and Johnson, Donald B., National Party Platforms, 1840–1856 (Urbana: The University of Illinois Press, 1956), 121–24Google Scholar.

25. See Skowronek, Building a New American State, chaps. 6–8.

26. Doenecke, Justus D., The Presidencies of James A. Garfield and Chester A. Arthur (Lawrence: Regents Press of Kansas, 1981), 147Google Scholar.

27. Harold, and Sprout, Margaret, The Rise of American Naval Power (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1939), 195Google Scholar.

28. Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 186–98.

29. Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 224.

30. Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 234.

31. Roosevelt, An Autobiography, 230.

32. White, The Republican Era, 91.

33. Burke, John, “The Institutional Presidency,” in Nelson, Michael, ed., The Presidency and the Political System (Washington, DC: CQ Press, 1994), 378Google Scholar.

34. Burke, “The Institutional Presidency,” 3–4.

35. Letter, Roosevelt, to Representative Burton, Theodore E. (Rep. – Ohio), in Morison, Elting E., ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 3 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1952), 735Google Scholar.

36. The bulk of William Moody's correspondence as navy secretary concerns patronage and personnel. Members of Congress routinely intervened in navy personnel issues. An example is a letter from Senator Henry Cabot Lodge to Moody, July 9, 1902, in which Lodge writes: “Colonel Guild has written me a long letter in regard to Commander W.S. Moore who wants to be the successor of Melville. He seems to have a very excellent record.…He is the first name on the list from Massachusetts, but his name is pretty low down…”; and see Taylor, Admiral to Moody, , 07 29, 1903, in Papers of William Henry Moody, Library of Congress, Washington, DC.Google Scholar

37. Gould, Lewis L., The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1991), 135Google Scholar.

38. See Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 258.

39. Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 249.

40. Roosevelt, Theodore, First Annual Message, December 3, 1901, in Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 13 (New York: Bureau of National Literature, 1917), 6641Google Scholar.

41. Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 259–60. Roosevelt's use of the annual message to frame an appeal to the public as well as Congress conforms to Jeffrey Tulis's observation that in the traditional presidency suggestions for policy change and new laws “would be written, and addressed principally to Congress;” see Tulis, Jeffrey, The Rhetorical Presidency (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 46Google Scholar. However, Roosevelt also used occasions for public speeches to promote his naval policy and urge congressional action, confounding the initial appearance of his rhetorical constraint. For example, in a May 14, 1903, speech in San Francisco, Roosevelt said of naval expansion: “All of our citizens should make it a matter of prime duty to see … that the next Congress, and the Congress after that, and the Congress after that, go right on providing men and … the means … to be effective in war”; see Speech at Dedication of Navy Memorial, 05 14, 1903, in Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt (New York: Kraus Reprint, 1970), pt. 1, 403Google Scholar.

42. Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, pt. 1, 34.

43. There were seventeen first-class battleships commissioned or authorized at the time Roosevelt entered office in September 1901. The mean average displacement of the last three of these authorized was 16,657 tons. In his seven years in office, Roosevelt gained authorization for sixteen battleships, the last three of which had a mean average displacement of 25,011 tons; see Annual Reports of the Navy Department (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1908), 564–69; and Harold and Margaret Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 269, fn. 69.

44. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 267.

45. See O'Connell, Sacred Vessels, chap. 1.

46. For an instructive, modern case of an executive decisionmaker using information and analysis as strategic resources to overcome conventional military practice in arms design and acquisition, see Art, Robert, The TFX Decision: McNamara and the Military (Boston: Little, Brown, 1968)Google Scholar.

47. Letter, Roosevelt, to Mahan, , 10 25, 1902, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 3, 368Google Scholar.

48. Letter, Roosevelt, to Admiral Converse, 10 31, 1904, Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 3, 1006Google Scholar.

49. “Accept Battleship Plans,” New York Times, September 1, 1908, 1.

50. First Annual Message, December 3, 1901, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 13, 6668.

51. Letter, Roosevelt to Moody, , 04 21, 1904, Papers of William Henry Moody, Library of CongressGoogle Scholar.

52. First Annual Message, December 3, 1901, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 13, 6668.

53. Third Annual Message, December 7, 1903, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 14, 6806.

54. “Lessons of the War Game,” New York Times, September 9, 1902, 8.

55. Second Annual Message, December 2, 1902, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 14, 6722; letter, Admiral Taylor to Moody, , 12 22, 1902Google Scholar, Papers of William Henry Moody, Library of Congress; “Self Reliance Taught by Naval Maneuvers,” New York Times, November 30, 1902, 28.

56. Blum, John Morton, The Progressive Presidents (New York: Norton, 1980), 24Google Scholar.

57. Beale, Howard K., Theodore Roosevelt and the Rise of America to World Power (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1956), 55–57Google Scholar.

58. Burke, The Institutional Presidency, 34.

59. O'Connell, Sacred Vessels, 58; see Morison, Elting E., Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1942)Google Scholar.

60. Letter, William Sims to Roosevelt, , 11 16, 1901, in Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 103–4Google Scholar; letter, Roosevelt to Sims, , 12 27, 1901, ser. 2. Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of CongressGoogle Scholar.

61. First Annual Message, December 3, 1901, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 13, 6667.

62. The conventional roles of the White House military aides in the period can be seen through the eyes of Colonel Archie Butt, who served both Roosevelt and Taft. See Abbott, Lawrence F. (ed.), The Letters of Archie Butt (New York: Doubleday, 1924), esp. 60, 134–35, 205, 208Google Scholar. These letters include references to Sims' service as naval aide.

63. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 246.

64. See Keegan, John, The Price of Admiralty (New York: Viking, 1989), 103–5Google Scholar.

65. Letter, Roosevelt to Sims, , 10 5, 1904, ser. 2, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of CongressGoogle Scholar.

66. O'Connell, Sacred Vessels, 111–15. In late 1905 there was resistance even to the relatively moderate urging by Roosevelt and naval general board president Admiral Dewey to increase from 16,000 to 18,000 tons two already authorized battleships, the Michigan and the South Carolina; see “Dispute Over Battleships,” New York Times, October 16, 1905, 6.

67. Sixth Annual Message, December 3, 1906, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 14, 7067.

68. Mahan, Alfred Thayer, “Reflections, Historical and Other, Suggested by the Battle of the Japan Sea,” in U.S. Congress, Senate, Size of Battle Ships, 59th Cong., 2d Sess., 1907, Senate Doc. No. 213, 16Google Scholar.

69. Letter, Sims to Roosevelt, , 09 27, 1906. ser. 1, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of CongressGoogle Scholar.

70. Sims, William S., “The Inherent Tactical Qualities of All-Big-Gun, One Caliber Battle Ships of High Speed, Large Displacement and Gun Power,” in U.S. Congress, Senate, Size of Battle Ships, 59th Cong., 2d Sess., 1907, Senate Doc. No. 213, 18–39Google Scholar.

71. O'Gara, Gordon Carpenter, Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Navy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1943), 67Google Scholar.

72. Letter, Sims to Roosevelt, , 01 10, 1907, ser. 1, Papers of Theodore RooseveltGoogle Scholar, Library of Congress.

73. Letter, Roosevelt to Rep. Foss, George, 01 11, 1907, in Morison, , ed., The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, vol. 5, 545and fnGoogle Scholar.

74. Address, February 22, 1905, Presidential Addresses and State Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, pt. 3, 264–65.

75. Address, March 17, 1905, Presidential Addresses, pt. 3, 304–5.

76. “The ‘All-Big-Gun’ Battleship,” New York Times, February 7, 1907, 8.

77. Letter, Roosevelt to Sims, , 10 23, 1907Google Scholar, ser. 2, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of Congress.

78. Letters, Key to Roosevelt, , January 26 and April 13, 1906, and memorandum, “Notes on Navy Personnel Legislation: For the President,” 10 31, 1907Google Scholar, ser. 1, Roosevelt Papers, Library of Congress; and Fourth Annual Message, December 6, 1904, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 14, 6926, and Seventh Annual Message, December 3, 1907, Messages and Papers of the Presidents, vol. 14, 7117.

79. Letter, Key to Roosevelt, , 07 12, 1906, ser. 1, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of CongressGoogle Scholar.

80. Letter, Roosevelt to Key, , 07 14, 1906Google Scholar, ser. 2, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of Congress.

81. Roosevelt had close friendships with diplomats in the British, German, and French diplomatic corps. His correspondence with these officials suggests that they were his primary source of foreign affairs intelligence. In effect, Roosevelt became his own intelligence officer. His use of Sims in this regard was as a detail person to check or ascertain information relevant to Roosevelt's strategic concerns. See the correspondence with Hermann Spaeck von Sternberg, Jules Jusserand, and Cecil Spring Rice in Elting E. Morison, The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt.

82. Letter and memorandum, Sims to Roosevelt, , 12 19, 1907Google Scholar, ser. 1, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of Congress.

83. Six months later the charge that Brazil was acting to mask another country's arms acquisition became public. The source of that charge is not apparent, but it forced Brazil to an official denial, and then Britain announced it was considering purchasing the erstwhile Brazilian ships; see “Brazil's Official Denial,” New York Times, July 2, 1908, 16; and “Brazil's Ships for Britain,” New York Times, July 17, 1908, 1.

84. Letter, Sternberg to Roosevelt, , 02 25, 1908, ser. 1, Papers ofTheodore RooseveltGoogle Scholar, Library of Congress.

85. Sims, William, Memorandum for the President, 03 4, 1908Google Scholar., ser. 1, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of Congress.

86. O'Gara, Theodore Roosevelt and the Modern Navy, 56–64.

87. For a description of this controversy, see Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 182–214.

88. Sims had advised Roosevelt: “It seems to me that the most effective way of influencing the persons you have in view, who do not wish to be convinced, would be to bring the pressure of public opinion to bear upon them by publishing the arguments in the case …;” see letter, Sims to Roosevelt, , 01 10, 1907Google Scholar, ser. 1, Papers of Theodore Roosevelt, Library of Congress.

89. Reuterdahl, Henry, “The Needs of Our Navy,” McLure's Magazine (01 1908), 251–263Google Scholar.

90. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 184.

91. Letter, Key to Roosevelt, February 2, 1908, and memo, Sims to Roosevelt, , 02 14, 1908, ser. 1, Papers of Theodore RooseveltGoogle Scholar, Library of Congress.

92. “President Holds Naval Conference,” New York Times, March 6, 1908, 4.

93. U. S. Congress, Senate, Committee on Naval Affairs, Hearings on the Bill (S. 3335), 1908, 60th Cong., 1st Sess.

94. Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 278.

95. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 264.

96. Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 265–66.

97. Letter and memorandum, Key to Roosevelt, June 9, 1908, ser. 1, and letter, Sims to Roosevelt, , 06 25, 1908, ser. 1, Papers of Theodore RooseveltGoogle Scholar, Library of Congress. See Morison Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 201–2.

98. Sprout, The Rise of American Naval Power, 279.

99. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 201–34.

100. U. S. Committee on Administrative Management, Report (Washington, DC: Government Printing Office, 1937), 5Google ScholarPubMed.

101. Morison, Admiral Sims and the Modern American Navy, 263.

102. See Fearon, James D., “Counterfactuals and Hypotheses Testing in Political Science,” World Politics, 43 (1991), 169–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

103. Rappaport, Armin, The Navy League of the United States (Detroit, MI: Wayne State University Press, 1962)Google Scholar, chap. 1.

104. Blum, The Progressive Presidents, 59; for a similar observation, see Gould, The Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt, 170.

105. See Seligman, Lester and Cornwell, Elmer Jr, eds., The New Deal Mosaic: Roosevelt Confers with His National Emergency Council (Eugene: University of Oregon Press, 1965)Google Scholar; Freidel, Frank, FDR: Launching the New Deal (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973)Google Scholar; Sidney Milkis, The President and the Parties, chap. 3.

106. The plasticity with which modern presidents treat institutionalization leads weight to the interpretation here. Institutionalization, on the one hand, represents a path of accumulation of some practices over time. On the other hand, to fit their perceived needs, modern presidents reshape and reinvent the institutions of the presidency. See Terry Moe's account of this history of the engagement of leadership with institutionalization in “The Politicized Presidency.” Also see the variations in approaches of the presidents documented in Greenstein, ed., Leadership in the Modern Presidency.