Theodore Rex

by Edmund Morris

this conservative elite. ROOSEVELT BROUGHT HIS trust remarks to an indecisive end, suggesting that if Congress felt debarred from passing a law regulating interstate commerce, it should consider a Constitutional amendment to that effect. He called for a new department to regulate commerce and industry, and new laws to improve conditions for American workers. He granted labor’s right to combine for self-advancement, as corporations did, on condition neither threatened the larger rights of society. By now it was past one o’clock. Bottles of bourbon stood tall and cool in the Senate saloon, and white bean soup bubbled in the restaurant. Members began paging through their copies to see how much Message was left. The survey was discouraging—almost twice as much again. But some of the upcoming issues were too important to walk out on. Roosevelt had shrewdly intermixed them with others of less consequence. He demanded reform of immigration laws, including a threefold ban on persons