Your TR Source
Given how hard it is to get agreement between members of Congress, President Roosevelt tells Representative Payne that he has decided to do the prefatory work on the Germany tariff issue through Ambassador Charlemagne Tower.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-10-04
President Roosevelt tells Ambassador Sternburg that although he would like to do more in “the tariff matter” between the United States and Germany, leaders in Congress have not agreed to allow him to send a commission to Berlin. He hopes to meet with House and Senate leaders in October and make Ambassador to Germany Charlemagne Tower the intermediary.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-23
President Roosevelt tells Ambassador Sternburg that Congress is frustrating his efforts to make progress in the tariff matter with Germany, and that he cannot at present send someone to negotiate. He hopes to meet with House and Senate leaders in October and make Ambassador to Germany Charlemagne Tower the intermediary.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-24
President Roosevelt informs Representative Dalzell that he was advised against sending “any special man” to Germany to discuss the tariff matter. Ambassador to Germany Charlemagne Tower, a Pennsylvanian, will handle the situation.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-25
President Roosevelt has written to Senator Allison, Senator Nelson W. Aldrich, Secretary of the Treasury Leslie M. Shaw, Speaker of the House Joseph Gurney Cannon, and Representative John Dalzell about the possibility of tariff negotiations with Germany taking place in Berlin. Roosevelt has decided to have Ambassador Charlemagne Tower take up the matter. He asks Allison to write a full set of instructions for Tower as soon as possible.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-27
President Roosevelt discusses the military prowess of the Roman Empire. He tells German Ambassador Sternburg that he believes that the Japanese government did a poor job of communicating to their people how much they gained in the Treaty of Portsmouth. The Japanese are now rioting because the country did not receive a large indemnity. Roosevelt also tells Sternburg about problems with stockholders, as well as his trip in the submarine Plunger.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-09-06
President Roosevelt would like to speak with Senator Aldrich on tariff matters sometime when it is convenient.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-08-08
President Roosevelt is glad Pearl Wight is a national committeeman and inquires about Wight’s relations with Louisiana Senator Murphy J. Foster. Roosevelt specifically asks if Wight can figure out what Foster would think about appointing William P. Luck as the appraiser of customs for the port of New Orleans, Louisiana.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-06-12
President Roosevelt agrees with Attorney General Moody that individual proceedings should not be brought up against officers of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway unless there is evidence linking them to guilty conduct. Roosevelt compares the Atchison case with the case of the western railroads and the International Harvester Company. Unlawful practices were abandoned in both cases, and no individual proceedings were brought against the officers of the western railroads. The president believes the Atchison railroad officers should be treated the same way. Roosevelt details why there is not “one shadow of testimony” against former Secretary of the Navy Paul Morton and believes how the government handled the Northern Securities case in not prosecuting the principal directors is how the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway case should be handled.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-06-12
President Roosevelt tells Senator Proctor that the appointment to replace David Henry Jarvis as Collector of Customs for Alaska has already been made. He also asks why Assistant Secretary of the Navy Charles Hial Darling will stay in his current position until September and asks if his transfer to the position of Collector of Customs in Vermont could be made in June.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-21
President Roosevelt believes that the enclosed letter from the New York Merchants’ Association explains itself. Roosevelt instructs Secretary of the Treasury Shaw to prepare a point-by-point answer to everything in the letter and allow the lawyers from George Borgfeldt & Company meet at the White House with Treasury Department experts present. The letter claimed that duties on earthenware from Holland was unjust.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-03-20
President Roosevelt followed Speaker of the House Cannon’s suggestion and offered Vespasian Warner the position of commissioner of pensions. As such, it will be difficult to appoint Scott as the public printer. He asks Cannon to stop by to discuss issues.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1905-01-13
President Roosevelt asks Senator Platt if the Philippine tariff can be reduced to fifty percent during the current session of Congress.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-21
President Roosevelt hopes Senator Payne can push an amendment to the present Philippine bill in the House reducing the tariff to fifty percent. Roosevelt reminds Payne this is a compromise, as Secretary of War William H. Taft wants it to be reduced to twenty-five percent. New York Senator Thomas Collier Platt and beet sugar manufacturer H. T. Oxnard are both willing to accept fifty percent.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-24
President Roosevelt thanks Charles William Eliot for his thoughts on James H. Hyde. Because Roosevelt believes Hyde needs more diplomatic experience, he will start Hyde in a minor position and then transfer him to France, if he does well. Roosevelt appreciates Eliot’s compliments on his message and believes questions about industrialism outweigh questions concerning the tariff, remarking that “sooner or later the nation must undertake the regulation of all the great corporations engaged in interstate commerce.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-08
President Roosevelt explains his difficulties in calling an extra session of Congress to discuss a reduction of the tariff to Nicholas Murray Butler. Roosevelt believes there is no point in calling an extra session early unless there is agreement among the leaders about how to modify the tariff, as there would not be enough time during the short extra session for substantial debate on the issue.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-09
President Roosevelt lays out his thoughts about the tariff to Speaker of the House Cannon, suggesting that Congress ought to take up the tariff law because it has been eight years since it was passed. Roosevelt proposes that the Senate Committee on Finance and the House Committee on Ways and Means put together a joint commission to discuss the tariff question and report at a special session of Congress as soon as possible.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-30
President Roosevelt discusses his frustrations about the tariff revision and reciprocity with Nicholas Murray Butler. The president does not intend to divide the Republican Party, but is going to do his best to amend the present tariff law in order to meet expectations of the people that the government consider the tariff, and show “that the Republican party is not powerless to take up the subject.” He emphasizes that the contents of the letter to Butler are personal and are only for Butler and members of the “kitchen cabinet.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-02
President Roosevelt appreciates Nicholas Murray Butler’s willingness to write the unsigned article he mentioned and discusses the problems with the Argonaut article about the tariff revision. According to Roosevelt, there will be damage whether the tariff revision is tried or not, but “less serious damage” if the revision is tried. Roosevelt will not, however, break from the Republican party on the issue.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-12-03
President Roosevelt read Senator Platt’s letter with great interest, but disagreed on two points. First, he believes there is strong support for an amendment of the tariff laws. Second, the president thinks it is important to undertake some action on the tariff, and that it should be done during a special session of Congress. Although he sees the dangers of trying to do something, Roosevelt argues it is better than doing nothing. The president also encloses a copy of a letter from Charles A. Schieren, former mayor of Brooklyn.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1904-11-22