Lincoln and Roosevelt

A couple of years ago some conservative wrote an article claiming that John and Robert Kennedy would be Republicans if they were living today. The argument was based on President Kennedy's tax cut law of 1962, his willingness to take America to the brink of war over Russian missiles in Cuba, and (presumably) Robert Kennedy's doubts about the efficacy of welfare payments.

It's nonsense of course. Kennedy's tax cut was broad-based, whereas, for example, the cuts made by President Bush and the Republican Congress of 2003 were heavily weighted in favor of rich people. Kennedy's speeches, especially his inaugural, were rather bellicose, but privately he called himself, "the most peace-at-any-price president of the century." He negotiated a limited test ban treaty with the USSR, and, just before his murder, was signalling his intention to wind down the commitment to South Vietnam.

Bobby Kennedy certainly felt that sending a welfare check to indigent people and then ignoring them was debilitating, but thought the key to helping them lay in providing employment opportunities at realistic wages.

A better question for my conservative friends is: would Abraham Lincoln and Theodore Roosevelt have been Democrats if they were living today? I think there are very good reasons to say yes.

Lincoln is best remembered today for guiding the country through the abominable Civil War, and for abolishing slavery. He should be recalled too as a proponent of economic protectionism and of a transcontinental railroad.

He admitted that he didn't know much about economic policy and was just adhering to Whig and Republican Party orthodoxy. The high tariff he espoused, opposed by the Democrats of his day, would make foreign imports more expensive, thus making American goods more competitive. In modern parlance, protectionism would keep jobs from being "outsourced" to countries with lower prevailing wages. Modern Republicans and Democrats favor the free trade position Lincoln would have been against, though the Democrats nowadays hedge their support for free trade with calls for economic and environmental protection in foreign lands. On balance, modern Democrats seem closer to Lincoln's position than do modern Republicans.

Lincoln believed that a transcontinental railroad was essential to American unity and progress. He approved of lavish government subsidies to get the road built. In fact, the Union Pacific and Central Pacific companies did extremely well building the railroads, gaining both monetary stipends from the government and land grants they could then sell to private citizens. Call it a government bailout if you want. (The UP was bilked out of much of the profits by its own board of directors, but that's another story.) So Lincoln favored government spending as a means to desired ends.

Theodore Roosevelt was a president who pioneered activities previous executives had avoided or shunned. In 1902, for example, he took it upon himself to mediate a coal strike that, if unsettled, would have left the country cold and dark through the winter. Roosevelt expected the union to be intransigent and the owners to be amenable, and was surprised when just the opposite happened. The union president asked for a ten cent an hour pay hike and union certification, but said he would surrender representation rights if his rank and file got their raise. The owners just dug their heels in and said no to every proposal. The president found himself holding their feet to the fire to get a deal, when he had expected he'd have to get tough with the union.

TR, as he preferred to be called, could be very decisive in foreign affairs, particularly when an American interest was directly involved. I'm thinking of the Panama Canal here. Roosevelt badly wanted a canal, but the Colombian government made what he thought were exorbitant demands for the right to dig it. When a rebellion occurred in Panama, then part of Colombia, he dispatched gunboats to prevent Colombian forces from suppressing the rebels, then made a quick deal with a self-appointed Panamanian, gaining permission to build the canal. The deal was actually made in a New York City hotel room. "While others dithered, I acted," he said.

This same President Roosevelt took it upon himself to act as an "honest broker" between Russia and Japan a year later. The treaty he mediated, finalized at Portsmouth New Hampshire, concluded the Russo-Japanese War. TR was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. (Unfortunately, the treaty dissatisfied many Japanese militants and caused a lingering fury against America.)

Near the end of his presidency, Roosevelt very quietly threatened war against Germany to protect the Monroe Doctrine. The Germans backed down. But in the seven and one-half years TR occupied the oval office the American military hardly fired a shot in anger.

People today remember his adage, "Walk softly and carry a big stick." It's too bad we emphasize the stick and neglect to walk softly.

Roosevelt was known as the conservation president. Proclaiming national monuments and fish and wildlife refuges, Roosevelt paved the way for "scientific management" of the public lands. He also took what were admittedly baby steps to end the awful suppression of black Americans a hundred years ago, notably inviting Booker T. Washington to a White House dinner.

Now just ask yourself. Two activist presidents, both intent on protecting American workers from cheap foreign competition, both willing to spend money to further broader American interests. Both willing to use force, but willing to stake their presidencies on peace-making. What party would they belong to?