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The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism
Audiobook (abridged)16 hours

The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism

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Winner of the 2015 Audie Award for History/Biography and Finalist for Audiobook of the Year

Pulitzer Prize–winning author and presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin’s dynamic history of Theodore Roosevelt, William H. Taft and the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air.

Winner of the Carnegie Medal.

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s The Bully Pulpit is a dynamic history of the first decade of the Progressive era, that tumultuous time when the nation was coming unseamed and reform was in the air.

The story is told through the intense friendship of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft—a close relationship that strengthens both men before it ruptures in 1912, when they engage in a brutal fight for the presidential nomination that divides their wives, their children, and their closest friends, while crippling the progressive wing of the Republican Party, causing Democrat Woodrow Wilson to be elected, and changing the country’s history.

The Bully Pulpit is also the story of the muckraking press, which arouses the spirit of reform that helps Roosevelt push the government to shed its laissez-faire attitude toward robber barons, corrupt politicians, and corporate exploiters of our natural resources. The muckrakers are portrayed through the greatest group of journalists ever assembled at one magazine—Ida Tarbell, Ray Stannard Baker, Lincoln Steffens, and William Allen White—teamed under the mercurial genius of publisher S.S. McClure.

Goodwin’s narrative is founded upon a wealth of primary materials. The correspondence of more than four hundred letters between Roosevelt and Taft begins in their early thirties and ends only months before Roosevelt’s death. Edith Roosevelt and Nellie Taft kept diaries. The muckrakers wrote hundreds of letters to one another, kept journals, and wrote their memoirs. The letters of Captain Archie Butt, who served as a personal aide to both Roosevelt and Taft, provide an intimate view of both men.

The Bully Pulpit, like Goodwin’s brilliant chronicles of the Civil War and World War II, exquisitely demonstrates her distinctive ability to combine scholarly rigor with accessibility. It is a major work of history—an examination of leadership in a rare moment of activism and reform that brought the country closer to its founding ideals.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateNov 5, 2013
ISBN9781442353183
Author

Doris Kearns Goodwin

Doris Kearns Goodwin’s work for President Johnson inspired her career as a presidential historian. Her first book was Lyndon Johnson and the American Dream. She followed up with the Pulitzer Prize–winning No Ordinary Time: Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt: The Homefront in World War II. She earned the Lincoln Prize for Team of Rivals, in part the basis for Steven Spielberg’s film Lincoln, and the Carnegie Medal for The Bully Pulpit, about the friendship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. Her last book, Leadership: In Turbulent Times was the inspiration for the History Channel docuseries on Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Franklin Roosevelt, which she executive produced.

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  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well, last year it was James Garfield and Roscoe Conkling, and this year it's William Taft: my familiarity with long-dead politicians is expanding dramatically. While I wouldn't go so far as one professional reviewer, who gushed "think *The West Wing* scripted by Henry James" as if at a Hollywood pitch meeting, I agree that Goodwin takes the politics and mores of a largely forgotten time and makes them as vivid as the present-day Washington news. Before this, I knew a little about Roosevelt and next to nothing about Taft, and now I feel like I almost knew both men personally. And I soon found myself liking Taft, a true conservative by temperament and ideology, a great deal. I even found myself reluctant to push on through the end of the book, when I knew the great friendship between Roosevelt and Taft would founder and fall into bitter acrimony.Aside from the great entertainment offered by a portrait of great personalities, I loved learning about the Progressive Age, the brief spate of correction to the excesses of the first Gilded Age, when American politicians first talked seriously about the government's obligation to provide a social safety net and to rein in the power of the greatest corporations. Today, when even the politicians of the Left lean right, it's refreshing to read about a time when the politicians of the Right leaned left. This is a book to get lost in, partly for fun, and partly for rebalancing.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Goodwin does a masterful job weaving together the lives of TR, Taft and the rise of progressive journalism. It is a long book but always readable.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I loved the sense of really understanding the character of both men. I gained an appreciation of Taft as a sensitive and thoughtful person, and though Roosevelt was a great and dynamic individual in many ways he lacked empathy. Wonderful and very interesting book.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A wonderful read and very applicable to our own times. The period Goodwin writes about -the late 19th and early 20th century- was more wedded to the ideas of laissez faire economics than our own. How these two Republicans remade the country is astonishing, especially given their know nothing descendants. The role played by McClure and his writers is also well done.I think the author's point is if it was possible to introduce all of this progressive legislation then it is possible now. We just haven't discovered how to do it yet.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Two men with very different temperaments but similar political goals are the best of friends and then bitter and public enemies in this dual biography of former presidents Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft that?s as gripping and deeply moving as a novel. Doris Kearns Goodwin, who also authored the Lincoln bio Team of Rivals, seems to have a knack for finding fascinating angles on history. The Bully Pulpit brings back to life the late nineteenth to the early twentieth century American Progressive Era, when the merits of unions, giant corporations, women?s rights, and big government were passionately debated, and the Republican and Democratic parties were very different, sometimes with roles reversed, than they are today. This was also the ?Golden Age of Journalism? so the ?muckrakers? who played a crucial role in the political upheavals of the time are also a large part of the book. Entertaining, instructive, and occasionally heartbreaking, The Bully Pulpit tells great story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    As a story of two politicians who went from a laissez faire approach to conservative progressivism, this book excels at walking the reader through the emergence of progressive thought. Goodwin gets into the details of TR and Taft's administration without getting bogged down in boring detail by framing the discussion around the question most on the presidents' minds: How do we ensure a square deal for those left behind in the wake of the Industrial Revolution? Taft is a surprisingly sympathetic character who actually makes TR both more impressive and also more flawed than other portraits. The focus on the journalists not only helps explain the politicians' successes and failures, it also provides a lens through which to better understand the issues of the day.Like Goodwin's Team of Rivals, the deep profiles of the leading characters around the central figure (here, of course, it has to be Roosevelt despite the book's shared billing with Taft), gives a way of understanding TR that in most ways far surpasses other biographies, including Morris's. Millard's River of Doubt may surpass Bully Puplit in terms of its powerful storytelling, but not by much--which says a lot considering Goodwin's substantial page count.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Another instant classic by Goodwin! What a fantastic read about one of my favorites - Theodore Roosevelt - and his good friend (and later rival) William Howard Taft. Included in this dual-biography are great chapters on the journalists at McClure's magazine including Steffens, Baker, and Tarbell. This book does a fantastic job capturing the issues, the politics, the drama, and the history of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Goodwin writes her narrative in a way that is easy to read, contains great detail yet moves the story along, and helps the reader understand the characters through their own words. Could not recommend this book enough to anyone who enjoys history or simply a great story.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is a dual biography of Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft. The two men are opposites in many ways. Roosevelt was sickly as a child but grew up to be a muscular outdoorsman, while Taft a talented young athlete as a young man grew sedentary with age leading to his notorious girth. Roosevelt had a lot of charisma but his arrogance could get the best of him, while Taft was genuinely kind almost to a fault. The two grew to be political allies and friends. Despite both being born into wealthy and powerful families, and adherents of the pro-business ideology of the Republican party, they both became leading Progressives chipping away at the power of big business and the wealthy class. Things seem to go well until Roosevelt retires and Taft becomes his successor as President. Taft has to work to make an impression in his predecessor's shadow, not at all helped when Roosevelt turns against Taft for not being Progressive enough. The election of 1912 turns out to be an ugly one as Roosevelt runs against Taft for the Republican nomination - one of the earliest campaigns with statewide primaries and candidates campaigning on their own behalf - and leading to a raucous convention. Taft wins the nomination, Roosevelt splits off to run on his own "Bull Moose" Progressive ticket, but the damage is done for both men.This book also focuses on the muckraking journalists of the Progressive Era such as Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, and S.S. McClure who both inspired and prodded Roosevelt and Taft. This part of the book is both very interesting, but also feels both like a long tangent from the Roosevelt/Taft biography and short shrift for the muckrakers who deserve a book of their own.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Beautifully written. A page-turner. Totally engaging. Honestly, despite its size, I found this hard to put down, I was so engaged with the characters, their personal interactions, their views of history and the role of government, their development, and their personalities as they met the challenges of an industrializing economy, the concentration of wealth in corporate trusts, and the legacy of laissez-faire, which no longer was adequate to meet those challenges. A great coherent narrative that read like a novel while being totally grounded in primary sources of participants. A magnificent piece of writing.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    A combination of Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and how the current press figured into their campaigns & presidencies. I was a bit disappointed that the journalism parts seemed to get short shrift. Most of the Roosevelt information was the same as I had read in other books on Roosevelt, and I suspect I'll find the same Taft information in the Taft biography. Written very well but long and it didn't seem to know where to settle.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This excellent history has three threads: the relationship between Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, the rise and influence of investigative, long-form journalism, and Roosevelt's pioneering use of the press to achieve political ends. Any one of these would make a good book in itself, but their inclusion in a single volume allows Goodwin to illuminate each discussion in the context of the other two. This is a thoroughly enjoyable book and some of the parallels to the interplay of the media and politics today should be more widely known and discussed.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Goodwin is superb as an historian and in this book we see Teddy Roosevelt and William Howard Taft as individuals but also we see how working shoulder to shoulder, they created a greater good often at the cost of their own ambitions.TR's personality comes through as adventurer and master politician. Taft comes through as a loving, generous, gentle giant who twice refused appointment to the Supreme Court (his greatest desire) because he believed his efforts elsewhere were needed. In this book we also see the development of the power of the press and how a good politician could utilize that power. This book was extremely informative, however it could have been just as informative without being so wordy. Several passages were repetitive and could easily been omitted.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Goodwin presents a compelling thesis about the presidency and press and stresses how Theodore Roosevelt was able to use the press to his advantage during his remarkable presidency, but that his successor William Howard Taft failed to utilize journalists in the same manner and ultimately damaged his administration through poor PR. This is a long book and Goodwin often times gets caught up in the details, chronicling the lives of Roosevelt, Taft, and the preeminent journalists of the age (Sam McClure, Ida Tarbell, etc.). A good read, but I do wish the author had edited the text better and cut down a bit on the length.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    I highly recommend Peri Arnold's, Remaking the Presidency as an analysis of Roosevelt, Taft, and Wilson. As Arnold demonstrates, it was less Taft's personality, as Goodwin describes, and more his lack of executive experience and understanding of how the presidency was changing in the early years of the twentieth century. Although Roosevelt and Wilson both had some different ideas on what the presidency had evolved into, they both understood that the office had changed in ways that Taft had not.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I read this absorbing, but extremely long book because Teddy Roosevelt is my favorite President, I've always admired the muckraking journalists who wrote for McClure's magazine and because my great grandfather was the foreman of the Grand Jury who brought in the indictments against the Swift & Armour trusts. i knew very little about Taft - other than the fact that he was enormously fat - but have to say that my opinion of him has risen immensely because, in the end, he may just be the hero of this tale.Doris Kearns Goodwin writes well researched, yet accessible history and it's easy to get drawn into the story she tells. My only complaint is that, like may good researchers, she has a hard time leaving any of it in the drawer, and there were several places where the book went into way too much detail for the average reader.Still the story of how politics almost destroyed the lifelong friendship of Roosevelt sand Taft is compelling, and ultimately sad. Taft, in the end, proves that he is the better person willing to forgive and forget while Roosevelt appears small and peevish by comparison.The muckrakers are a more straight forward heroic story with Ida Tarbell, Lincoln Steffens, Upton Sinclair, et. al, all raising cane and taking names at the late, great, McClurde's magazine and bringing down the railroads, Standard Oil and the aforementioned meat trusts.It was an exciting time to live and this book demonstrates what can happen when an activist President and crusading journalists unite to do great things. However, like all great times, the air ultimately runs out of the balloon and the pendulum swings in another political direction. TR and Taft were followed by Woodrow Wilson, World War I, the first "Red Scare" and the corrupt politics of the 1920's. It took a world-wide financial crisis to bring the nest reformer (ironically another Roosevelt) into office.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    At the end of the 19th century, the United States government was much smaller than it is today. The industrial revolution was in full swing, and many very large businesses had been created, largely through mergers, acquisitions, and other combinations usually referred to in those days as ?trusts.? Workers had no statutory right to unionize, and many people felt victimized by the ?robber barons? who had become fabulously rich in railroads, the tobacco trust, the steel trust, the oil trust, and the sugar trust, among other large businesses. Doris Kearns Goodwin writes about this era, sometimes called ?the gilded age,? and several of the men (and one woman) who made their careers battling for what they perceived to be economic justice. Many historians and economists believed that powerful governmental regulation was needed to rationalize the structure of the economy in order to make it more just and equal. But the plutocrats who benefited from that economy would surely oppose such regulation--hence the need for a ?Bully Pulpit? from which reformers were able to rouse public opinion to compel the government to adopt ?progressive? policies. The bully pulpit?s principal practitioners were President Theodore Roosevelt, who coined the term, and the staff of McClure?s Magazine. Goodwin?s book focuses on them and on William Howard Taft, Roosevelt?s immediate successor as President, who continued most of Roosevelt?s policies. It is somewhat hard for the modern reader to appreciate the influence of investigative print journalism in the days before television and radio. Great orators could reach at most a few hundred people at time, but newspaper accounts and magazine articles could reach millions. Goodwin points out that ?Investigative journalism?had assumed the proportions of a movement, exerting an influence on the American consciousness hardly less important than that of Theodore Roosevelt himself.? Magazines like McClure?s had become so politically significant that William Allen White quipped it was as if we had ?Government by Magazine.? The staff of McClure?s became known as the ?muckrakers? for all the dirt they turned up about American business and politics. [Parenthetically, muckraker originally was meant to be a term of abuse, but it became one of approbation because of the high quality and importance of the reporting at McClure?s.] McClure?s ran serialized featured articles on many industries, frequently uncovering bribery, conflicts of interest, and unfair business practices rife therein. But of all their features, Ida Tarbell?s series on the Standard Oil Trust of John D. Rockefeller stands out as the most influential. Tarbell argued that the oil trust was built by ?predatory? price cutting, intimidation of competition, and unfair practices such negotiating discriminatory railroad rates. Tarbell?s father was a small oil producer who ultimately ?sold out? to Rockefeller. Goodwin seems to have accepted Tarbell?s view of the industry. Goodwin writes that Tarbell proved that Standard Oil would never have obtained its monopoly without ?special transportation privileges.? And once it obtained market domination, ?Rather than use this domination and the efficiencies of scale to reduce costs, Standard Oil sought to maximize profits.? The author seems completely unaware of John S. McGee?s 1958 study, Predatory Price Cutting: The Standard Oil (N.J.) Case that appeared in the Journal of Law and Economics (1 J.L. & Econ. 137, 1958). McGee showed convincingly that Standard Oil grew not so much by driving out the competition but rather by outright purchases of the competition, leaving the former competitors quite wealthy and Rockefeller with a virtual monopoly. Goodwin sympathizes with Roosevelt, who believed the way to curb the power of the trusts was through detailed regulation. TR focused on behavior like ?unscrupulous promotion, overcapitalization, unfair completion, resulting in the crushing out of competition?? He sought to enhance the power of the Interstate Commerce Commission, even to set railroad rates directly. She gives only passing reference to the Sherman Antitrust Act, which was already on the books before TR and the muckrakers and which prohibited ?contracts and conspiracies in restraint of trade.? Later developments were to show that the Interstate Commerce Commission (since dissolved) became the least effective governmental agency for promoting economic efficiency, while the Sherman Act became the government?s most powerful weapon against monopoly.Quibbles about her version of economics aside, the author writes well about the politics of the era. In writing the book she found that Taft ?was a far more sympathetic, if flawed, figure than I had realized.? He had been a highly respected federal judge, and the author of an important antitrust, antimonopoly opinion, Addyston Pipe and Steel v. U.S. (175 U.S. 211, 1899). He had also served with considerable distinction as Governor General of the Philippines and as Roosevelt?s Secretary of War. But even though Roosevelt himself designated Taft as his successor, Taft was emotionally more disposed to be a judge than an executive. His presidency was only partially successful. He attempted to follow Roosevelt?s progressive policies, but he was stymied by the conservative wing of his own (Republican) party. The author goes well beyond the story of public edification and subsequent enactment and enforcement of progressive regulation, and in a sense, this volume is two books in one: one part political and economic history; and a second part personal biography. Goodwin includes a great deal of minutiae about the childhoods, early lives, and later familial relationships of her protagonists. I found myself more interested in the history than the personalities, but Goodwin has sold a lot of books by detailing the personal lives of historical figures. [Cf. Team of Rivals.] In addition, most of the focus of the story is on domestic politics, and even there, you find practically nothing about Roosevelt?s conviction that whites were the superior race, and that they should try to outbreed other races lest they commit ?race suicide.? Goodwin loves her subjects, and mostly endeavors to show them in the best light. Evaluation: In terms of my personal taste, I think I would have liked this book more if it had less biographical tidbits and if it had been subject to the scrutiny of a good antitrust lawyer or economist. Nonetheless, it is worth reading, and most readers will probably appreciate and enjoy all the personal details about Roosevelt and Taft, and about the importance of their relationship with one another. (JAB)
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Essentially every Teddie Roosevelt biography suffers from the same, invisible weakness: the author cannot resist the urge to let the character's ego to eclipse the sun, leaving everyone, even his closet allies, to sulk in his shadow. Before "The Bully Pulpit", I've always viewed William Taft as an inconsequential character in Teddie's life, one who's known only for failing to carry the torch of the Progressive movement, Teddie's movement, forcing Roosevelt to forsake him and his own retirement. But it's a lie that distorts the real human relationship that was at work. This book, more than any other history of that time, depicts the humanity and fallibility of Teddie and Taft alike. I'm not a sentimental person, and I've very rarely moved emotionally by biographical works, but the relationship between Taft and Teddie, and the relationships that made up the McClure's editorial team, moved me.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Excellent Book. It challenged my impression and opinion of T. Roosevelt, and has prompted me to start thinking more carefully about Taft. After reading TR's autobiography in 2000, I became enchanged with his disenchantment with the Republican party... while I still frustrated there, this book has helped clarify many suspicions I have had about a lost 3d way in the transition of the GOP into the party of conservativism and the Democrats into the party of liberalism.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    For any historian, bringing the past to life is a most difficult of task, and it is to the credit of Doris Kearns Goodwin that she has succeeded to such a marked degree with her successive assessments of powerful leaders. I first encountered her work when I read No Ordinary Time, a history of the relationship of Eleanor and Franklin Roosevelt. Subsequently I enjoyed her book, Team of Rivals, about Lincoln and his cabinet.This work explores the lives and times of former presidents Theodore Roosevelt and William Howard Taft, creating an image of the past that captures emotions as well as events, with an entertaining account of that bitter 1912 political convention that marked the crumbling of a great friendship as well as of a political party. In this work she draws a comparison between the currently widening gap between the rich and poor and the chasm that was one aspect of the path to reform in the early 20th century. Unfortunately, in spite of her immensely readable prose, she provides a slanted view of history that treats the progressivism of Roosevelt and the muckraking journalists of the era in an all too hagiographic fashion.She makes a comparison with the challenges faced by today?s leaders when she discusses the use of the ?bully pulpit,? that famous phrase coined by Theodore Roosevelt to summarize the power that a president can wield to mobilize and galvanize the public mind. The times were such that ?muckraking? was applied to the more extreme journalists; noting the influence of the press on the presidency and its connections to Roosevelt. These connections included an alliance with Sam McClure, editor of McClure?s Magazine, where there were gathered what became a legendary group of journalists: William Allen White, crime reporter Lincoln Steffens, Ray Stannard Baker and a woman, Ida Tarbell. Goodwin's research is demonstrated by her use of such vital material as more than 400 letters written between Roosevelt and Taft in their 30s, which made it all the more poignant that their friendship was destroyed by the political rivalry launched by Roosevelt in 1912. Taft is seen as a failure as a public leader, seeing his political success impeded by the genuine skills of his judicial career, which left him too convinced of his own rectitude. His lack of passion for politics ultimately left him unable to emulate Roosevelt in using the press to carry the legislative message of the president. Taft even conceded after leaving office that he had failed to use the ?bully pulpit? to achieve his goals. According to Ms. Kearns Goodwin, Taft was ?temperamentally unsuited? to make use of that bully pulpit that contributed so substantially to Roosevelt?s success.The author underlines her insight into the characters of the two men by framing their family background and their emotional attachments. She writes sensitively of Roosevelt?s devastation at the death of his first wife, Alice, to the point that he could not bring himself to address their daughter by the given name of Alice, calling her instead ?Baby Lee.? When he does remarry, his second wife, Edith, who was his true first love, was devoted to her husband despite being more restrained in her links to the world beyond her home. Roosevelt?s character could be summed up by a visiting British viscount who commented that he encountered ?two tremendous works of nature in America ? Mr. Roosevelt and Niagara Falls.?Ironically, the differences between Roosevelt and his friend Taft were pointed up by their similarities. Taft was an amiable, kindly man who excelled in all high office except one. He was, the author observes, ?an excellent number two man,? yet he lacked the necessary political acumen require in a president. He was not a true progressive in the way that Roosevelt was. His wife, Nellie, gave essential encouragement to her husband as a judge and as president, relishing the role of first lady. It was she who brought cherry trees to the capital, created parks and lobbied for higher wages for workers.Goodwin concludes the history of the Roosevelt-Taft era with her account of the 1912 election when Roosevelt broke his promise not to seek a third term and embarked on a brutal campaign against the man who was once his closest friend and who also lacked the ferocity for a bloody election battle. It was ironic that even in the White House, Taft apparently realized that he was best suited for the bench ? and indeed he became chief justice of the Supreme Court after leaving the presidency.An eloquent epilogue describes the brief reconciliation of Roosevelt and Taft. As a result of this when Taft attended Roosevelt?s funeral, he commented, ?Had he died in a hostile state of mind toward me, I would have mourned the fact all my life. I loved him always and cherish his memory.? The statement said a great deal about both men.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Great story of two great men in a time when journalism was king. Long but a great read.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    A doorstop of a book but well worth the effort. A perfect read for this election season; plus ca change.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    This was a fantastic slant on the American political history of the early 20th century. Similar to, but not quite a biography, The Bully Pulpit tells of the first two Presidents of the last century. I've long been interested in Theodore Roosevelt and his surprisingly progressive Presidency. Elected by the Republican machine to maintain the status quo, TR surprised everyone with his campaign of trust busting. The Bully Pulpit is more than a retelling of this story. It tells of the important role that William Howard Taft played in the TR administration, the warm personal friendship between the two men, and TR's efforts to pass the Presidency and his legacy to a reluctant WHT. When TR returns from a post-Presidential African safari, he is displeased with his old friend's administration. He is also bored out of his skin. The cure to both conditions is an effort to retake the Presidency. The result is the temporary destruction of the Republican party.Also a major part of the book is the story of muck-raking journalism. There was a time when good investigative journalism in this country roused public opinion against the powerful entrenched interests, and motivated politicians to make fundamental changes to benefit the masses. Of course, these were the days before Americans sat for hours mesmerized by glowing screens. The story of how the public was once mobilized behind McClure's magazine and writers such as Ida Tarbell, Ray Baker, and William Allen White was completely fascinating. I highly recommend this book.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Well, how can you go wrong with a book by Doris Kearns Goodwin? She is definitely one of the top writers and populizers of American History now working. The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism is no exception. Beautifully written as all of her books are, this provides a unique take on the lives of Roosevelt, Taft, and the role of the muckraking media on their careers.

    Not a full blown biography of either man, but one that tracks their rise to power initially in a parallel fashion which merges during the Presidency of Roosevelt, and then flies apart during the Presidency of Taft. The two men; Roosevelt, the scion of a rich New York family, born a sickly child who by the sheer will of his personality transformed himself into the "rough rider" we are all familiar with, and Taft, whose father was a successful businessman and public servant, who seemed less driven than Roosevelt, but who possessed a highly developed sense of what was right and wrong, and whose intelligence propelled his successful career, formed an unlikely though deep friendship that turned into deep enmity during the Presidential campaign of 1912.

    Both men were part of the progressive wing of the Republican party, willing to impose regulations on businesses that used their influence in a way detrimental to the public good (trust busting), and who took up the cause of the working man proposing limits on the length of the work week, a raise in the minimum wage, and safety and health standards. Their eventual falling out came about as a result of the largely mistaken view on Roosevelt's part that President Taft was not carrying on this progressive legacy. During their careers both were the beneficiaries and targets of a new style of journalism - one that used investigative reporting to advocate for reforms in business and government to root out endemic corruption. This came to be known as muckraking.

    Goodwin traces the rise of muckraking journalism - not a negative term at the time - as it rose during the careers of Roosevelt and Taft. Some of America's greatest journalists came out of this progressive tradition including most notably, Ida Tarbell. Focused largely on the journalists working at McClure's Magazine, one of the first and most successful of the muckraking publications Goodwin details the many ways in which both Roosevelt and Taft relied on the work these journalists were doing to provide the factual basis for the progressive policies they were pushing.This alliance produced some of the most progressive and far sweeping reforms of the twentieth century. And it also propelled Roosevelt into the top rank of U.S. Presidents. However, it also set an impossibly high standard for Taft to reach while he was President. So despite the fact he had some notable successes during his administration, by comparison, he looked like a failure in the eyes of Roosevelt and the Muckrakers, who turned on him with a vengeance in 1912.

    I really enjoyed this book quite a bit. While many books have been written about Roosevelt and a fair number on Taft, there are few that have looked at them in tandem and that also included looked at the important role played by the media on their careers. It's an important aspect of the Progressive era that is usually overlooked.

    Three things really struck me as I read this book. First, it really hits home how far the modern Republican Party has strayed from its roots. There have been, arguably, three Republican Presidents that are nearly universally acknowledged to be great - Abraham Lincoln, Theodore Roosevelt, and Dwight Eisenhower - none of whom would be welcome in today's hyper-conservative party. Second, while Roosevelt deserves the acclaim he has received, he could also be petulant, hyper-sensitive to any perceived slight, and disloyal to formerly close friends, as evidenced by the way he turned on William Howard Taft. And last, I have a renewed respect for Taft who is caricatured in history as the bumbling fat man that squandered Roosevelt's accomplishments. Nothing could be further from the truth. He was highly accomplished prior to his time in the White House, was a more successful President than is usually acknowledged, and had a very distinguished career as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court.

    Highly Recommended!
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    This book is, overall, very good, but it lacks focus. Yes, the part about the muckrakers is interesting and important historically, but way too long. (I believe the part would have made a wonderful book about progressive journalism at the turn of the 20th century.) I also feel the part about Taft's governorship in the Philippines is too long and not integral to the story. Nevertheless, the Roosevelt and Taft are brought to life. Ms. Goodwin's writing is easy to read and never gets in the way of the story. The last part of her book, which focuses on Roosevelt and Taft's parting of the ways, is a page turner. Finally, I learned a lot from this book, and I'm glad I read it.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Another huge book by this author, exploring the interrelationship between TR, Taft and the McClure journalists. Well researched and very readable - tho long! The exposure to the journalists was new territory for me, but many of the quotes sounded as if they applied to today's political environment.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Enjoyed this immensely. The story of the friendship of Taft and Roosevelt, how Roosevelt became the first truly media-savvy President, and the heady first years of the Progressive era makes me yearn for a time when ideas mattered, when seemingly arcane subjects like tariff reform captured the publics attention.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    I am almost finished. I was struck by the fact Taft tried to continue many of the programs of Roosevelt but he received very little credit for what he did. Of course, he refused to rule by executive order like Roosevelt. He fired Roosevelt's popular head of the Forestry department Pinchot causing a breach with Roosevelt. This helped cause Roosevelt to contest Taft for his second term which led to the election of Woodrow Wilson. Even though Teddy was adored by the public he could not win the presidency in 1912. He could not even win the Republican nomination. However, this is explained by the author because Teddy took a perhaps too radical approach to his campaign. He argued citizens should be allowed to vote to overrule even judicial rulings in plebiscites like California has. This was too much for the establishment. Even though Teddy won the primaries in 1912 there weren't enough of them so Taft won the Republican Nomination in 1912 by winning most of the conventions. Even Teddy's best political friend Senator Henry Cabot Lodge did not back him in 1912. The newest thing I learned is how Teddy wrested the leadership of the Progressive Party from Robert LaFollette. Even though the progressives initially thought Teddy was too establishment they deserted LaFollette and all flocked to Teddy when he decided to run in 1912. He was doomed in 1912 when he could not wrest the Republican nomination from Taft. It was wonderful that the author included in the epilogue a chance encounter between Taft and Roosevelt in May 1918 in Chicago.They apparently reconciled at this meeting. It reminded me of the reconciliation between Jefferson and John Adams. The author also notes Taft's wife Nellie outlived him by 13 years even though she was sick during their White House years. Finally, the author says Taft liked his position as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court so much he even managed to reduce his weight down to 250 pounds.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    hew! That was a long one. It was excellent, though maybe a bit TR heavy. But that is how the relationship between TR and Taft was, TR sprinting ahead and dragging everyone in his wake while Taft plods along but still makes progress. Very well written and researched with a bonus focus on the progressive journalism of the time and how much of mutual relationship they had with TR.
  • Rating: 4 out of 5 stars
    4/5
    Wow! What a dizzying, delicious read; for several days, Doris Kearns Goodwin's latest history of American Presidential leadership at its best kept my attention from first to last. Reading it was enjoyable like a great, thrilling novel can be; my consciousness was consumed by the narrative.In many ways, I found The Bully Pulpit: Theodore Roosevelt, William Howard Taft, and the Golden Age of Journalism reminiscent of Goodwin's excellent presentation of President Lincoln's unique approach to the Presidency and the personal qualities that shaped that successful strategy. In this work, a time of exciting change, danger and opportunity is the setting for unique, fascinating characters to make their respective marks on our national history in surprising and impressive ways. The accurate and thorough grounding in time and place serves as a mere backdrop to the actions of individuals within the narrative, or rather, the political situation is presented within the narrative as material that sets great human forces in motion. Of course, the context is ultimately of singular importance since only in the effects of actions related do we find the historical significance to the country. It's impressive to me that without undermining that context or giving it short shrift, Goodwin invites the reader to feel and perceive the actions of these great leaders on a personal level. I am aware and should let you, my fellow readers, know that I may be attributing too much intention to Goodwin's crafting of the work. I haven't close read this book on any level; I swept through it. I describe its qualities based on what ultimately engaged my heart and mind completely -- the human drama -- and there was no dearth of material to substantiate that interest. It could be I've greatly overstated the particular emphasis on this element. I recommend this book highly to any who are interested in the people or political situation involved; I knew only general information about this book's subject matter. For me, that made it even more of a purely pleasurable read than was Team of Rivals; I was happy to learn so much! I would especially encourage readers with a particular affection for reading dynamic historical biographies to try this book (and other work by Goodwin if you have not yet). Don't be intimidated by the book's heft; Goodwin is a clear writer who tells a seamless story in the context of a sophisticated analysis of the history.I plan to read this book again at some point; I will do so more slowly so that I may pay greater attention to Goodwin's craft. This review will be updated with whatever more specific insights I pick up at that time. Please be advised that I received a free copy of this book through the Goodreads Giveaway program on the sole condition I would publish an honest review once I read the work. Thank you for taking the time to read my thoughts; I hope they are helpful to some of you.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    Similar issues as today, yet somehow a more genteel resolution. Beautifully read and proving once again that real life characters are the best