America's Money Machine

12 PART I / THE ROOTS OF REFORM
son's Frenzied Finance (1902), Gustavus Myers' History ofthe Great American
Fortunes (1910), Burton J. Hendricks' Story of Life Insurance (1907), and
Charles Edward Russell's attack on the meat industry, The Greatest Trust
in the World (19°5), all contributed to an unsettlement of public faith in
business and finance and in the leaders of industry, and encouraged
Roosevelt in his anti-business policies.
InJune, 1906, Roosevelt obtained passage oflegislation (the Hepburn
Act) greatly strengthening the powers of the Interstate Commerce Commission
in regulating the railroad industry and it was under this authority,
after the Fish-Harriman feud broke into the open, that Roosevelt early
in 1907 directed an attack upon Harriman for his railway manipulations.
While Roosevelt was. attacking big business in the press and in Congress
it appears that he was not unwilling to have side deals with big
business men. Unfortunately also, he allowed himself to play with fire in
dealing with Harriman. Harriman, not unexpectedly for a man of his
ambitions and in possession ofhis substantial resources, had found himselfsomething
ofa political power, at least in New York State. This does
not seem to have been of his conscious choosing, for as we have.noted
he was not an extrovert, but shy, retiring, and indifferent to appearances;
if he interested himself in politics, it was because of his conviction that
it was good for the railroad industry to have a powerful advocate in high
councils.
Whatever the exact relations between Roosevelt and Harriman, there
exists a considerable record ofintimate correspondence betweenthem in
which Harriman's opinion on affairs of state was solicited, or at least
welcomed, by the President. Whether this was from Harriman's desire,
or through the influence of Roosevelt's closer friend Stuyvesant Fish or
from other causes, by 1904 Harriman, now a key factor in New York State
politics, was also a Roosevelt confidant.
During the final weeks ofthe 1904 campaign it appeared that New York
State might be lost to the Party and that additional campaign funds were
needed. Roosevelt's anxiety over the possibility of losing his own State
prompted an exchange of letters in which Roosevelt wrote (on October
10, 1904) to Harriman:
In view of the trouble over the State ticket in New York, I would like to have
a few words with you. Do you think you can get down here within a few days
and take either luncheon or dinner with me?
Roosevelt seems to have had second thoughts about the political wisdom.
of the invitation to a man so identified with his pet bogies and to