Theodore Roosevelt Sues Joseph Pulitzer for Libel

THEODORE ROOSEVELT SUES JOSEPH PULITZER FOR LIBEL

Questions over the Panama Canal

On 4 November 1903 a small revolution established the state of Panama, formerly part of the nation of Colombia. Two United States warships, the Nashville and the Dixie, sailed offshore to deter interference by the Colombian military. The new state of Panama was far more receptive than Colombia had been to American plans to complete the long-stalled Panama Canal, a project begun by a French syndicate and now secretly backed by wealthy American investors. President Roosevelt privately expressed reservations over the way the project's future had been secured, but publicly he defended every action taken by his government. William Nelson Cromwell, a handsome and influential New York lawyer, had spread his clients' money liberally in the Congress, including $60,000 to the Republican campaign fund in 1900.

Threat of Political Blackmail

Shortly before the 1908 election, Panamanians disgruntled over their small share of the profits going to the canal's overseas investors threatened to expose the part played by powerful Republicans. Roosevelt's handpicked successor was William Howard Taft. Taft's brother Charles and Roosevelt's own brother-in-law, Douglas Robinson, had each gained a fortune when the United States paid $40 million, supposedly to buy out the French syndicate that had begun the canal. Cromwell, the lawyer who brokered the deal with the French and guided the canal legislation through the Congress, gave the story to Pulitzer's World, including his own denial, in order to forestall a political scandal. The story was repeated by the Indianapolis News, secretly owned by Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks, who was furious that Roosevelt had backed Taft for the Republican nomination for the presidency.

The President Strikes Back

Roosevelt heatedly denied all charges of impropriety. The World began to trace the $40 million paid by the U.S. government and ran a story claiming that the money had gone not to the French government as alleged, but to a dummy corporation fronting for J. P. Morgan and Company. It suggested that people close to the president had profited richly and implicated American greed in the Panamanian revolution. The paper accused the president of deliberate lies. Pulitzer himself, cruising the Atlantic on his yacht, was shocked to learn that his World had printed the allegations against Charles Taft and Douglas Robinson based only on the statements of their lawyer, Cromwell. Roosevelt demanded that the district attorney of New York prosecute Pulitzer for libel. Although the district attorney felt that he too had been unfairly attacked in Pulitzer's papers, he declined to indict, but Roosevelt found more willing prosecutors. He told one U.S. district attorney, "I do not know anything about the law of criminal libel, but I should dearly like to invoke it against Pulitzer, of the World?

The Grand Jury Convenes

On 17 February 1909 a District of Columbia grand jury indicted Pulitzer, his editors Caleb Van Hamm and Robert Hunt Lyman, as well as Pulitzer's corporation, for five counts of criminal libel against Theodore Roosevelt, J. P. Morgan, Douglas Robinson, Charles P. Taft, Elihu Root (the secretary of state), and William Nelson Cromwell. Similar indictments were issued against the Indianapolis News. The World took an unrepentant editorial stance. Its editorial director, Frank I. Cobb, wrote, "Long after Mr. Roosevelt is dead, long after all the present editors of this paper are dead, The World will still go on as a great independent newspaper, unmuzzled, undaunted and unterrorized." The old and sickly but still fierce Pulitzer cruised the Atlantic outside the three-mile territorial limit to avoid arrest.

TEDDY ROOSEVELT'S BALLOONS

Theodore Roosevelt revolutionized the relationship between the president and the press. He took reporters into his confidence, treated them as professionals, and used them much to his advantage. Previously, all presidential announcements were carefully guarded until the day of official release. Roosevelt gave them to the press days in advance, with prohibition on publication until the release date, so that full analysis could accompany the statement.

Roosevelt also invited correspondents he particularly liked, including The New York Times Washington bureau chief Richard Oulahan, known as the "fair-haired," to talk with him during his morning shave. They could not quote him directly without his consent . In this way, Roosevelt adopted a technique pioneered by James G. Blaine, known as the "trial balloon." He could get public reaction to a policy without tying his name to it. When the new West Win g of the Whit e House opened in 1902, Roosevelt designated an official press room. He understood that a colorful president could lead public opinion and force the unruly Congress to follow his lead.

Source:

Donald Ritchie, Press Gallery: Congress and the Washington Correspondents (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1991).

A Victory for Freedom of the Press. In 1909 a federal judge dismissed the case against the Indianapolis News, citing clear improprieties in the Panama Canal affair. The World decided to challenge the government's jurisdiction in its case rather than to fight the charges themselves. But when a New York judge dismissed the charges against the paper in January 1910 as "opposed to the spirit and tenor of legislation for many years," Pulitzer was not satisfied. He kept needling his opponents to appeal the case to the Supreme Court, so that it might end with a resounding affirmation of the freedom of the press. On 3 January 1911 the Court handed down a decision that did exactly that. The World commented that the victory was so sweeping "no other President will be tempted to follow in the footsteps of Theodore Roosevelt, no matter how greedy he may be for power, no matter how resentful of opposition." This prophecy would prove to be short-lived, as American involvement in World War I brought new government efforts to curtail press freedom.

Source:

W. A. Swanberg, Pulitzer (New York: Scribners, 1967).