The President’s Directive at the Hotel Tacoma
A leaked account of a 1903 banquet reveals how Theodore Roosevelt settled a local political dispute over railroad regulation with a single, sharp rebuke.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
The railroad commission plank in the Republican state platform is binding on every Republican in the state of Washington. Any Republican who rejects that declaration will be liable to charges of party irregularity. Such is the logic of a declaration by President Theodore Roosevelt at the banquet tendered him by Senator Foster at the Hotel Tacoma on the night of May 22.
After the formality of the affair had worn off, B. S. Grosscup of Tacoma, chief counsel for the Northern Pacific, asked the President if party leaders would be justified in ignoring a platform plank if they deemed it unwise. Reports vary, but Governor McBride intervened to sharpen the question: 'Suppose that the plank had had full and open discussion before the people, had been thoroughly debated before the party convention, had been adopted there as the deliberate judgment of the convention, had been submitted to the voters and made the paramount issue in the campaign, and had been ratified by the people. In that case, would the party leaders be justified in repudiating that pledge of their party?'
'Decidedly not,' was the prompt and emphatic reply of the President. The exchange made a profound impression on those present, silencing the railroad interests in the room.
“Suppose that the plank in question had had full and open discussion before the people... would the party leaders be justified in repudiating that pledge of their party? Decidedly not.”
This 1903 standoff over the power of political platforms versus corporate influence mirrors modern debates about civic accountability. Just as railroad interests in the early 20th century attempted to bypass voter-mandated regulations, contemporary city debates in Walla Walla often center on whether elected officials or private developers ultimately hold the mandate to shape our infrastructure.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.