Roosevelt’s New Nationalism 1910

OSAWATOMIE KANSAS - AUG. 31, 1910, Theodore Roosevelt delivered what was perhaps the most important speech ever given in Kansas.  Surrounded by 30,000 enthusiastic listeners he presented a political introduction of a conviction that became a milestone on the road to the modern all-powerful state. 

The Speech

Roosevelt didn’t write the Osawatomie speech but in early May he reached this decision to allow Gifford Pinchot to write the draft.

The address wasn’t written until late July early August. Pinchot asked Midwest newspaper icon William Allen White to help compose and edit the themes.

On August 17th Roosevelt accepted the Pinchot version, making a few changes but finding it "substantially satisfactory." 

He insisted that only a powerful federal government could regulate the economy and guarantee justice and that a President can succeed in making his economic agenda successful only if he makes the protection of human welfare his highest priority.

Roosevelt wanted executive agencies, not courts, to regulate business. The federal government should be used to protect the laboring men, women and children from exploitation.  The speech also called for the following.

  • A National Health Service to include all existing government medical agencies
  • Unemployment and disability insurance
  • Limited injunctions in strikes
  • A minimum wage law for women
  • 8 Hour Workday
  • A Federal Securities Commission
  • Farm Relief
  • Workers Compensation
  • Inheritance tax
  • Income tax

TR’s speech, later called the "New Nationalism Address" backfired.  It was called Communistic and Socialistic.  It was delivered at the two-day dedication of John Brown Memorial Park located near the vicinity of the Battle of Osawatomie between Proslavery men and men led by John Brown.

In 1906 on the 50th anniversary of the battle, TR’s Vice-President Charles W. Fairbanks was at Osawatomie where he spoke to a crowd of about 20,000.  In the summer of 1910 Roosevelt had scheduled a Western trip for the late summer.

Organizers of the celebration thought the former "rough rider" would be willing to come to Kansas for so patriotic a cause as the dedication. At the time TR was slowly making his way out of the jungles of central Africa and off to Europe.  Roosevelt’s safari ended on March 15, 1910, and he returned home on June 18, 1910

Before heading home his itinerary included a rest stop at Porto Maurizio, Italy, in early April.  There is a rumor that’s frequently challenged that says Gifford Pinchot was there waiting at the Italian seaport to discuss his dismissal by Taft over the Richard Ballinger incident.  Following Roosevelt's audience with Pinchot, TR agreed to speak at Osawatomie sending a dispatch with a one-word message to the governor -- "Accept." 

When Roosevelt was invited, he was still unsure of his future role in American politics.  He was trying to appraise the status of the Republican Party.

Taft's actions over the tariff and the Ballinger-Pinchot controversy led a small band of insurgent Republicans to openly revolt openly against his leadership.  This feud complicated Roosevelt's position since the insurgents included his closest political associates.  Privately, he held Taft responsible for killing policies he initiated as President, but he didn’t want an open break with the administration. 

Up until 1912 he believed the Republican party was the only instrument of progress in America and he didn’t want to see it fall apart because of Taft's incompetence.  TR realized in his 2 years away the party machinery had become non-Roosevelt. In fact, he thought his ideals were currently being championed by many insurgents. 

Precisely what course he’d follow plagued him in the months after April 1910. It was during this period Roosevelt devised a scheme to meet the crisis.  In July he was visited by three leading Kansas rebels -- Sen. Joseph L. Bristow, Cong. Victor Murdock, and Rep. Edmund H. Madison.  The press saw their visit as an indication Roosevelt was supporting insurgency. It was said he was more radical than ever before." 

This was exactly the reaction Roosevelt wanted. As early as April, he had told Henry Cabot Lodge he intended to keep insurgency "out of the wrong kind of hands" so that he might be able to guide their movement.  Three weeks before his Western tour he wrote William Allen White he was trying to keep the insurgents free of a position from which he could not extricate himself.

By this time Roosevelt convinced himself that if he could appear as the ideological leader of the insurgents and then publicly endorse part of Taft's administration, he’d repair the GOP split.  He wrote Lodge in early July, "The greatest service I can render Taft is to try to help the Republican Party win at the polls in the Fall and that’s what I am trying to do."  He recognized expressing his ideas and not appearing critical of Taft would be a difficult job. Nevertheless, he was willing to make the effort. 

After his Osawatomie speech dramatically boomeranged, he told Lodge it was part of his program of party reunification. What Roosevelt didn’t say was he had placed a high price on his services as conciliator.  TR hoped his "New Nationalism" would become the core beliefs of Republicanism. The Osawatomie speech was meant to be the future platform of the Republican party. TR chose Osawatomie since he knew his ideas would be favorably received there due to his personal popularity. 

Roosevelt didn’t anticipate the violent reaction of his speech. The Eastern U.S. called him a "communist agitator."  The Western U. S. saw him attacking Taft.  

No matter how hard he tried he couldn’t change those opinions.  His plan and the Osawatomie speech were both unsuccessful.  Not only were his ideas too radical for the mainstream, but the reasons behind what he was trying to do was worrisome. 

The major problem was he didn’t draft the speech but allowed Gifford Pinchot to write it.  Pinchot was more extremist than TR in his support of strong governmental control over individual activities.  

Pinchot’s radicalism is far in excess of what Roosevelt would have done on his own. 

Writing in the September 3rd 1910 issue of the Outlook, Roosevelt was much more lenient towards capitalism than he had been at Osawatomie.  

TR tried to walk the speech back.  He said, "If we approach the work of reform in a spirit of vindictiveness, in a spirit of reckless disregard for the right of others or of hatred for men because they are better off than ourselves -- we are sure in the end to do no good, but damage to all mankind…