Clare McCullough

Income Inequality Examined Japan, Germany, and the United States

If globalized economic openness is causing the labor market to fluctuate then we see a trend of OECD countries in which income inequality is widening. Industrial democracies are living in a post-industrial world. Businesses that were formerly domestic industrial sectors are now outsourcing causing a restructuring of the labor market.  In this paper I will look why this economic globalization has made income inequality worse in some countries than in others since the 1980s. In Japan, the United States of America, and Germany; income inequality has stemmed from political causes such as lack of access to quality education, redistributive welfare policies, and the falling rate of unionization.

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Income inequality is important to study because a more economically equal society will contribute to a stronger vibrant democracy. This requires an analysis of labor, government, and business relations to determine to what extent education, redistribution of welfare, and unionization or lack thereof are contributing to income inequality. I found that Germany, Japan, and the United States were similar in that they had the largest GDPs in the world besides China and the European Union, but they are less than average when it comes to income inequality. The Japanese Gini Coefficient as of 2015 is 0.33. The German Gini Coefficient is 0.289, and America’s Gini Coeffect is 0.394. (OECD) They all have strong technology and service sectors, are generally conservative, though they display a range of cultural differences especially between the western and eastern countries, and admittedly have very different geographies. One similarity between these countries is demographic challenges that due to low fertility rates, another is gender inequality, threatening to damage sustained long-term growth and above all are largely import heavy economies. Germany possesses a social market economy, Japan’s economic structure could be described as a state-led market economy, and America is best put as a liberal corporatist mixed economy.

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In the new economically globalized world the labor-intensive products that used to be the bread and butter of the easily unionized manufacturing industry are now being made abroad or are otherwise automated. According to Barkin, this outside sourcing, meaning the importation of foreign parts and assemblies or even whole products, is creating a demand that automation is meant to fill. Employers prefer automation because its cheap and efficient labor that you don’t have to negotiate with. This increase in automation calls for more cognitive skills, and is accompanied by a simultaneous decrease of demand for the traditional manual labor.

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It’s plain to see that income inequality is lower in countries were average education achievement is higher. In fact, “the Gini index decreases by one percent as secondary enrollment rates rise by 0.25 percent.” The more people that have access to high-level quality education, the more people that are going to do better in a labor market that prioritizes high skill jobs. (Checchi) By raising the average education and opening up these employment opportunities, these efforts will contribute to a greater rate of social mobility meaning a lower long-term inequality.

It stands up to reason that individuals from poor families are more likely to borrow to finance their schooling. A common structural market failure appears when people from poor families are discriminated against because of their lack of resources. Although more education is associated with higher expected income, people will only invest in education so long as they get a marginal return. As a result, the poor will not invest in education and remain unskilled and earn a low income perpetuating the unskilled status of their dynasty. The increased costs of education can be solved by redistribution achieved by fiscal policy in order to open up opportunities for tertiary education. People who come from lower incomes and receive these benefits would be able to overcome the opportunity costs of forgone income due to school attendance. (Checchi)

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States with strong labor unions were likely to experience decreases in equality. This is due to the fact that labor unions more accurately represent the working poor’s interests and contribute to a more equal distribution of monetary resources. An ability to weigh in on business’s decisions is integral for the working class’s closure of the income gap. Social spending, progressive taxation, and higher wages for workers all contribute to a more equal distribution of social services. (Xu) Trade liberalization will increase income inequality in countries with high skill high technology labor. For example, the United States has been exporting technology intensive products and importing the cheap labor-intensive products. By importing these labor-intensive products that it used to make itself, the United States is losing unskilled jobs abroad. (Xu)

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For the last two decades, Japan’s policies have not kept up with its post-war economic miracle when their bubbled economy popped in the 90s. Japan is unique among the countries I chose because they had just entered the industrial market in the 1980s. Japan is an example of the State-led model and is a hybrid of a social market economy and a liberal market economy. It’s considered quasi-social because there is a very strong state bureaucracy that is the foundation of the formation of Japan’s welfare state. They currently have a stellar unemployment rate of 3.1 percent and 16.1 percent of their GDP comes from trade. (OECD) In Japan, 50.5 percent of adults have a college education and often scores in the top five for major subject’s proficiency such as math and science (OECD) Workers receive generous training and strong internal promotion practices as a chief source of skill generation. This on the job human capital investment is integral to the Japanese principle of lifetime employment. There is limited wage variation across firms but within firms the declining role of seniority and merit-based raises influence the widening wage determination. (Katz)

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Japan’s relatively low levels of social expenditure matches that of the United States. However, Japan categorizes welfare differently than the US. They forgo spending on social welfare and instead put that money towards investment in a very high level of expenditure towards public works. They have weak social regulation and strong economic regulations. Japan’s social insurance and healthcare system was built after the German model. Japan is the opposite of the United States in terms of its approach to the connotation of Welfare, even though they have the same levels of expenditure on social insurance as the US. In Japan, welfare is a very good word, but the Japanese tend to focus on the National Burden ratio instead, meaning the division of the sum of the tax payment and the social security contributions through national income. (Takegawa) Occupational welfare is substituted for social expenditure and in this way Japan lowers its national burden ratio. In fact, Japan even approaches welfare not from the class perspective like both Germany and the United States, but approaches it by addressing inequality though regions. These strong public works programs create employment in underdeveloped regions and thereby create a lot of protection for the low-productivity sectors. Due to the lack of competition, it is now becoming difficult for private companies to provide this welfare. There are essentially no other social protections other than healthcare and basic pensions. (Takegawa)

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In the 90s, Japan’s employment protection was strongly regulated. (Takegawa) Its labor market has been subject to deregulation in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Although Japan entered the 80s with already a very decentralized enterprise union structure, in 1989 power resources declined as a result of the process of labor market deregulation as it lowered union density by increasing the number of unorganized non-regular workers, meaning they work part-time. Japanese union density hit 17.7% in 2013. The 1993 part-time work law deregulated the labor market by allowing more part time workers into the system, thereby fragmenting the union density. Rengo was established in 1989 and was created to bring more strength to the bargaining position of unions to promote policy and other institutional reforms. Rengo initially had 8 million people, but in 2012, there were 6.8 million members. The decline in union membership causes for there to be less dues. Without a sufficient amount of dues there will be less resources for the unions to pull through their collective bargaining initiatives. (Watanabe) Japanese union structures are noteworthy because of its enterprise union structure. Work practices traditionally include individualized worker involvement in workplace quality, senior-based pay systems and a commitment to life-time employment. (Katz) Due to a significant increase in part time workers in the service sector there has been a resulting replacement of regular workers. In fact, Unions were entirely removed from the policy making process in 2001. A new labor standards law radically changed the structure of collective-bargaining in Japan. The new standards law that went into effect mandates that unions need to represent a majority of workers, meaning ¾ of the workers are needed to make collective agreements. (Watanabe)

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Out of all the countries I selected, the United States has the worst record on income inequality and education. According to Hoagland, “From 1979 to 2007 for the top 1% of earners had an income growth of 275% where the bottom 20% saw growth of 18%” This is a trend that is more significant in the United States than any other OECD country. It’s empirically shown that for US and Germany, labor market participation increases significantly when education levels exceed from less than compulsory to secondary and post-secondary education. However, in the United States, 9.9 percent of adults have below an upper secondary education, meaning a high school diploma, 45.7 percent of its working age population has a college degree. 44.5 percent of adults have a high school degree. (OECD) Not to mention that tertiary education currently sits at an extremely high price for a prospective student.

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Unemployment and poverty risk have increasingly become concentrated among workers with low levels of education while the government has become more permissive of cuts in unemployment generosity and income assistance to the poor. Reductions in unemployment insurance benefits give an explanation of why redistribution responsiveness to unemployment has declined. (Pontusson) 1996 welfare reform has significantly retrenched the social protection for single parents. (Seeleib-Kaiser) Even after the passage of the Affordable Care Act, health care is not universal and our insurance policy regarding healthcare is fragmented and highly contentious with progress seemingly not in sight. Liberal market economies such as America depend on market provision and means tested public social policy to provide for its most vulnerable.

 

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There has been a OECD trend that there has been increasing decentralization within collective-bargaining systems. Starting in the 1980s membership in unions have declined to a significant degree. According to Xu, “de-unionization accounts for 20 percent of the increase in wage inequality for US males in 1980s” this is indicative of the trends that have followed us these last three decades. Strong unions would ensure that its workers were taken care of because they would have power and sway with the workplace and have been seen to coordinate and make sure that the worker has a say in management. (Xu) Diverse variations in industrial relations in America that used to create competition and job fluidity are also now creating problems. There is no significant employment protections to speak of in the United States. Outsourcing has exacerbated the fragmentation of American decentralized unionization in fact, according the Bureau of Labor statistics, union membership is at an all-time low at 11.8 percent from 20.1 percent in 1983. Unions are no longer able to organize workers to the extent that they used to. The US has a voluntarist employment relation with significant difference among sectors in how they approach unionization and the structure of union representation. (Katz)

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Although German income distribution has been generally stable, differences became apparent in the 1990s and have largely been driven by atypical employment. In the mid-1970s 85 percent of employment was full time, but by the mid-1990s it had fallen to 67 percent, as a result median wages have fallen, and the wealth gap has increased. Germany does very well on the education front meaning that they get more citizens through high school than either Japan or the United States. In Germany, 58.2 percent of working age adults have an upper secondary education, 28.3 percent have a college degree, and 13.5 percent of adults have not graduated upper secondary education. (OECD) However, College education is provided free from the government, which as seen its benefits since Germany is the country I picked with the lowest rates of income inequality. Occupational apprenticeship plays a key role in Germany, it is integrated in the high school curriculum and operates as a de facto training skill structure. Germany is unique because it has experienced the reunification of west and east. At the time of reunification East German GDP per captia was only 57 percent of western levels. Incorporating east Germany into the west has proved to be difficult as the economy of the east was restructured

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Germany social security expenditure in 1996 was 37.68 percent of their national income. The reason that expenditure is so high is because, social welfare is a right that every German citizen has due to their constitution. They have free health care and education, while still providing most of the free services through private sectors. (Takegawa) But due to slow growth and a growing government debt, there has been some welfare retrenchment. Retrenchment leads to a decrease of actual social cohesion, key to Germany’s solidarity, because collective redistributive public benefits are cut. They have government-sponsored job training programs and maternal leave. In the early 1990s, the Kohl government cut more than 800 billion dollars’ worth of social benefits. (Lane) Negotiated benefits by unions have historically compensated losses caused by retrenchment policies. “Retrenchment describes policy changes that either cut social expenditure, restructure welfare state programs to conform more closely to the residual welfare state model.” (Trampush)

A good quote by Seeleib-Kaiser that notes Germany’s distinction from both Japan and the United States; “Germany continues to constitutionally guarantee a legal entitlement to minimum social protection for all citizens, such a guarantee does not exist in the United States” Germany’s conservative welfare states rely on social insurances to provide protection with the aim of social cohesion and stability. However, there is a significant problem of dualism where insiders get most of the benefits and the outsiders within a welfare system are not being provided with adequate redistribution. To qualify for welfare in the US, your social protection is dependent on occupation and industrial citizenship. But in Germany it’s a different story all together, welfare is an integration of social insurance schemes that attempt to minimize the breadth and depth of outsider status. While welfare benefits are decreasing in post-industrial society, unionization is too. The service sector is more difficult to unionize due to the nature of the industry.

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Unemployment was short term during the 70s, as 60-70 percent of unemployed were entitled to unemployment insurance benefits at a replacement rate of 68 percent. But now, long term unemployment is a bigger issue due to the lack of labor flexibility in the market making business less likely to employ workers who are difficult to fire. (Seeleib-Kaiser) Germany’s unions are distinguished by a system of codetermination, meaning that the workers have a right to participate in management decisions. This is demonstrated through their heavy use of works councils. Sectoral collective bargaining also plays a substantial role in Germany’s labor negotiations. Renowned for the strength of its inclusive unions. Extensive coverage of its sectoral collective bargaining system, and the dual structure of broad employee rights through works councils and supervisory boards. Like Japan and the United States, membership declined in unions especially in the 1990s. There has been some work organizational restructuring but not on the level of the United States and Japan. However, with the introduction of framework agreements are becoming more prevalent in collective bargaining, the decision-making procedures are becoming increasingly decentralized. Firms are subject to limitations due to codetermination that is within the law. But even works councils are experiencing declines, it decreased from 36,300 in 1980 to 33,000 in 1994(Katz) This decentralization of managerial responsibility has made it difficult for unions to know who to negotiate with. The has been a weakening of integral structures of the balance of roles between unions and works councils. Another hurdle to unionization is the new “mini-job” which was introduced in 2003. It was initially to create work incentives for those with low income and to address the high unemployment rate especially of low-skilled people. Although marginal employment is higher for women and students in the short run, it is questionable that these mini-jobs will actually lead to full time employment. (Caliendo) The result does not spell well for income inequality and seems to have created an overall decrease in full time work and an increase in part time work.

 

All in all, access to education, wealth redistribution, and the prevalence of unions all play a pivotal role in the rate of income inequality. The Japanese Gini Coefficient as of 2015 is 0.33. The German Gini Coefficient is 0.289, and America’s record on inequality 0.394. Wealth redistribution is going to play a bigger and bigger role in the coming years as the rise in inequality affects children’s wealth backgrounds rise simultaneously. (Pfeffer) Distribution of educational opportunity to the coming generations will line up with extreme wealth inequality. The more affluent “insiders” will be able to afford the rising costs of education without taking out the undue burden of student loans. Affordability of education, worker’s rights, and a basic standard of living is crucial to creating and finding jobs that would combat income inequality in the changing labor landscape. This is especially relevant when looking at United States’ higher education system. Germany leads the pack when addressing access to education, especially since higher education is free in Germany. Although Education is not free in Japan it does better on income inequality than the United States, but that seems to be due to the Japanese commitment to lifetime employment through on-the-job training by firms. Japanese enterprise unionism is unique, individualized, and effective although not as effective as it used to be.  Across the board, rates of union membership have decreased as well as the structures that allow unions to be effective. Full-time employment, worker’s rights, and investing in human capital are all key to creating a thriving workforce that allows the people to provide for themselves and we’ve seen a reduction in the availability of those jobs for the unskilled worker.

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Works Cited

CIA World Fact Book (2015). Germany. Japan. History Reference Center

Grabka, Markus. “Income and Wealth Inequality After the Financial Crisis: The Case of Germany.” Empirica, vol. 42, no. 2, May 2015, pp. 371-390. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1007/s10663-015-9280-8.

Hoagland, Steven R. “Income Distribution.” Research Starters: Business (Online Edition), 2015. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.libus.csd.mu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ers&AN=89163760&site=eds-live.

Takegawa, Shogo. “Japan’s Welfare-State Regime: Welfare Politics, Provider and Regulator.” Development and Society, vol. 34, no. 2, 2005, pp. 169–190. JSTOR, JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/deveandsoci.34.2.169.

Xu, P. (2016). Economic openness, power resources and income inequality in the American states. The Journal of Social, Political, and Economic Studies, 41(2), 3-30. Retrieved from https://search.proquest.com/docview/1807680952?accountid=100

Watanabe, Hiroaki Richard. “The Struggle for Revitalisation by Japanese Labour Unions: Worker Organising after Labour-Market Deregulation.” Journal of Contemporary Asia, vol. 45, no. 3, Dec. 2015, pp. 510–530., doi:10.1080/00472336.2015.1007388.

Checchi, Daniele. The Economics of Education: Human Capital, Family Background and Inequality. Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Trampusch, Christine. “Industrial Relations as a Source of Solidarity in Times of Welfare State Retrenchment.” Journal of Social Policy, vol. 36, no. 2, Apr. 2007, pp. 197-215. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1017/S0047279406000560.

Barkin, Solomon. “An Agenda for the Revision of the American Industrial Relations System.” Labor Law Journal, vol. 36, no. 11, Nov. 1985, pp. 857-860. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.libus.csd.mu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=buh&AN=5804751&site=eds-live.

Seeleib-Kaiser, Martin. “Welfare Systems in Europe and the United States: Conservative Germany Converging toward the Liberal US Model?.” International Journal of Social Quality, vol. 3, no. 2, Winter2013, pp. 60-77. EBSCOhost, doi:10.3167/IJSQ.2013.030204.

Katz, Harry Charles, and Owen Darbishire. Converging Divergences Worldwide Changes in Employment Systems. ILR Press, 2002.

“Union Members Summary.” U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 26 Jan. 2017, www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm.

Lane, Charles and Theresa Waldrop. “Is Europe’s Social-Welfare State Headed for the Deathbed?.” Newsweek, vol. 122, no. 8, 23 Aug. 1993, p. 37. EBSCOhost, 0-search.ebscohost.com.libus.csd.mu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ulh&AN=9308180067&site=eds-live.

Caliendo, Marco and Katharina Wrohlich. “Evaluating the German ‘Mini-Job’ Reform Using a Natural Experiment.” Applied Economics, vol. 42, no. 19, 20 Aug. 2010, pp. 2475-2489. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1080/00036840701858125.

Religious Violence, Judaism

Religious Violence describes the occurrences in which religion is used to justify conflict to cause suffering and harm either for or against a certain (non)religious doctrine. [1] Two incidents in which Judaism was the target or the perpetrator of religious violence were the Holocaust and the Israeli occupation of Palestine.

During the Holocaust, the Jewish people suffered and died because they believed in Judaism. During WWII, the Third Reich of Germany was a fatal shadow sweeping over Europe. Nazis started with registering all Jewish people that lived in any occupied territory that Germany had control over. The soldiers would kidnap Jewish people shove them in ghettos and then ship them to concentration and death camps. Their religion was the reason that all those people were taken. More than a million people were murdered because of their religion. [2]

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The Holocaust is an act of religious violence in that the Jewish people were targeted because of their religious beliefs and were treated as a pestilence that needed to be eradicated. The word “Holocaust” comes from the Greek word, “holos” meaning whole and “kaustos” which means burned. More than 10 million people in total died in death camps and according to the Telegraph, between five and six million Jews were killed[3]. They were targeted with violence because of their religion to Hitler, the Jewish people were an inferior race and a threat to German racial purity and community. As Germany expanded its control, it began mass transportations from the constructed ghettoes in Poland to concentration camps. Mass gassings were conducted in a large-scale industrial operation where thousands died of starvation and disease[4].

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On the other side of the question, the nationalism of Zionism and the illegal Jewish settlement of the west bank is the second incident I chose. In this circumstance, instead of being the victim of religious violence it wouldn’t be too far off to say that they were the aggressors. They colonized Palestine and the Zionism is defined as “the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. “[5] The Jewish people feel that they have a claim to their promised homeland and Israel is the accumulation of competing nationalism. Originally, Jerusalem was a place of peace between religion, it was a city of freedom. Jewish nationalism first started when the British promised a home for the Jewish people when Palestine was once under Ottoman rule. During WWII the Jewish population in Palestine rose since they were fleeing European persecution and the holocaust. The Israeli state starting accruing more power and the Palestinians and Zionists went to war. Palestinians lost this conflict and had to become refugees.  Jewish people settled in the west bank and west Jerusalem, and took over their land. The Palestinians started protesting and then Hamas became a large terrorist group. In response to growing tensions, Zionist Ariel Sharon marched on a very important Palestinian mosque with a thousand armed guards. The deaths were devastating. The Israelites made a wall claiming that they were protecting themselves but they put the wall through Palestinian territory. Religious war has continued over decades in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.[6]

The Israeli occupation of Palestine is an act of religious violence because the Jewish population and the Palestinian population had been and are still fighting in many bloody battles in the war over obtaining a homeland for themselves based on a religious principle. The Holocaust was a horrible genocide in which killings were carried out with ugly industrial efficiency. These two incidents are the ones that stand out when investigating religious violence in regard to Judaism.

[1] 1 van Liere, Lucien. “Tell Us Our Story.” Exchange 43.2 (2014): 153-173. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

 

[2] Knill, Iby. “A Holocaust Survivor.” Women’s History Review 25.6 (2016): 999-1005. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

 

[3] https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1481975/The-Holocaust-death-toll.html

[4] https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/the-holocaust

[5]  “Zionism: A Definition of Zionism.” A Definition of Zionism | Jewish Virtual Library. N.p., n.d. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

 

[6] Hanauer, Laurence S. “The Path To Redemption: Fundamentalist Judaism, Territory, And Jewish Settler Violence In The West Bank.” Studies In Conflict & Terrorism 18.4 (1995): 245-270. Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Jan. 2017.

 

A Journalist in the White House

Sam Langheim

On June 18, 1910 former president Theodore Roosevelt returned to America in New York, New York, after a year’s long African safari. He had departed from Southampton, England earlier that week on June 10, concluding his brief tour of Europe. Telegram communication allowed for newspapers to publish the daily progress of his journey. A particularly jubilant headline from the Boston Daily Globe (now the Boston Globe) captured America’s anticipation for the return of the former president, it read, “ROOSEVELT IS COMING HOME, HOORAY!” The article detailed Roosevelt’s activities on the Kaiserin Auguste Victoria and what he planned to do once he arrived home. Upon his arrival a reception of almost 100,000 people, including several members of his family, awaited him. Once on shore, amidst the cheers, reunions, and songs, Roosevelt made it a priority to greet the members of the press. Receiving them like he would an old friend, Roosevelt shook their hands in turn and exclaimed “Boys, I am glad to see you. It does me good to see you boys. I am glad to be back.” Amidst the crowd one reporter could be heard shouting “We’re mighty glad to have you back!” Over a year after his presidency, the press still covered him as if he had never left office.

Theodore Roosevelt and John Muir
Theodore Roosevelt with John Muir

Interactions like the one on June 18, 1910 were not uncommon between Roosevelt and journalists. Not since Abraham Lincoln had a president so effectively harnessed the press’s capability to motivate action among the American citizenry. Seeking to minimize corruption, stifle rising inequality, and relieve a middle class under crushing weight from industrialization, Teddy would have to mobilize Congress to act.

With a Republican party that was dominated by a devotion for laissez-faire economics and reactionary policies, he knew early on in his presidency that he would have to make a direct appeal to the people. In order to educate the masses on his policies, he formed a relationship with reporters from a variety of newspapers and magazines. He would also seek to project himself as a moral leader, diligently advocating for political participation by the people. His incredible life and influence on the relationship between president and press are still present even in today’s digitized world.

President Theodore Roosevelt

Once Theodore Roosevelt entered the White House there were over 2,225 newspapers in America and with more papers came the need for more stories. He received the oath of office on September 14, 1901, going into the office with mixed feelings of excitement and dread. He feared his presidency would be perceived as a successor position to that of William McKinley, who had died from an assassin’s bullet. Though he swore to continue the policies of McKinley, he would only stick to the course laid out by his predecessor for the first year.

On his first day in office Roosevelt held a meeting with managers from the Associated Press, Scripps-McRae Press Association, and the New York Sun. It was here that Roosevelt made his intentions clear; he would allow reporters unprecedented access to himself and the daily workings of the White House so long as they followed a specific set of parameters set by him. He would disavow any information in stories printed without his permission and would deny those reports access indefinitely. So, began Roosevelt’s long, sometimes troubled, relationship with the press. Teddy himself was a skilled writer, contributing some important texts to navy and military history. His admiration for writers lead some to call his relationship with the press “collegial”.

In 1902, as the West Wing was undergoing renovations, Roosevelt would become the first president to give members of the press their own room in the White House. The room would have telephone lines ensuring White House reporters could get any story out into the public before other reporters even had a chance to cover it. Though the same room is no longer used today, this created a lasting legacy on the coverage future presidents would receive by establishing the first White House press corps.

In multiple legislative battles, Teddy proved every time that he was not afraid to deploy the full powers of the press. He did this in order to put lawmakers under the gun and align themselves with polices he saw as furthering the Progressive movement. One such instance came upon the release of the novel The Jungle by Upton Sinclair on May 25th, 1906. The novel wrote on the revolting inner workings of the meat industry. The pages inside contained the grisly details of rotten meat, animal entrails, and diseased animals. Roosevelt was no fan of Sinclair and his socialist tendencies, but he was disturbed by the allegations in the novel. He appointed two investigators, Charles Neill and James Bronson Reynolds, who would later confirm the allegations in The Jungle, penning the Neill-Reynolds report.

Theodore Roosevelt Shaking Hands

Representative James Wadsworth (R-NewYork) chairman of the House Agricultural Committee, along with two Chicago congressmen expressed concern over any proposed legislation. Their chief concern was that any bill requiring inspection would pass the increased cost of regulation onto the consumer. Roosevelt was beside himself with disbelief. If the Neill-Reynolds report was to surface it would do irreparable damage to consumers and meat exports.  He precariously hung the possibility over their heads. Roosevelt commanded an army of reporters that could break the findings in the Neill Reynolds report at a moment’s notice, possibly destroying the reputations of those who refused to act. After a month-long showdown in the House, Roosevelts strategy had worked with the passage of the Pure Food and Drug bill on June 30, 1906; the vote totaled 240 to 17.

Roosevelt’s unique relationship with the press did not last the entirety of his term. Though it cannot be said that all reports would receive Roosevelt coldly, or turn their backs to him completely, one speech frayed the friendships he had built with some of his most trusted reporters. A reporter for McClure’s magazine, Lincoln Steffens, had written a piece in March 1906 speculating new parties would soon arise as a result of the Progressive movement. Roosevelt was struggling to keep his own Republican party together, and baseless inferences from journalists did not help. Roosevelt was becoming disenchanted with the new wave of detail oriented, investigative reporters that now dominated the newspaper industry.

On April 14th, 1906, three months before the showdown over meatpacking regulations in the House, Roosevelt gave a speech at the White House warning of the dangers of sensationalized reporting. A headline from the Boston Daily Globe read “SANITY NEEDED AS WELL AS HONESTY”. During the speech Roosevelt was quoted saying, “To assault the great and admitted evils of our political and industrial life with such crude and sweeping generalizations as to include decent men in the general condemnation means the searing of the public conscious”.

At the time of Roosevelt’s last meeting with the White House press corps he had left them with a final prediction that now almost feels like a warning. Teddy claimed, “There will be someone at the White House you like more than me but not one who will interest you more”. The office of the presidency has seen eighteen occupants since Theodore Roosevelt. Despite the most valiant of efforts, almost all have tried in vain to wield the same grip on public opinion that Teddy grabbed with both hands. Research conducted by the National Opinion Research Center further solidifies this point. By compiling public opinion surveys for 1935 to 1980 and matching them with president’s policy goals and media coverage, the researches wanted to find if any president has been able to sway public opinion in a significant way. The results showed little evidence that demonstrated a president’s effect on public opinion.  The only president that was shown to have significant sway of public opinion was Theodore’s cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt.

Roosevelt in a Boat

This analysis holds true even in C-Span’s Survey of Presidential Leadership where Franklin barely beats out Theodore for 1st place in the category of Public Persuasion. In spite of Teddy’s deteriorated relationship with the press nearing the end of his term, the media still remembers him as an icon of progress, intelligence, and endless intrigue. Whether it was his many hunting expeditions, his time as a cowboy in the Dakotas, or his unflagging push for progressive policies to reign in out of control business tycoons, Theodore Roosevelt knew how to dominate the headlines.

Journalists still remember Theodore today as they would have remembered him in 1901. He was one of them; a writer himself, and an admirer of writers. An article from the Washington Post published in January 2018 titled “Trump isn’t Big on Reading. Teddy Roosevelt Consumed Whole Books before Breakfast” details the constant flow of literature he would devour. The article claims Teddy would read through newspapers and magazines in an almost “predatory” way, tearing out the pages once he was finished with them. Not even his closest friends in the journalism community were above his scrutiny. The impact of Theodore Roosevelt’s complete transformation of the working relationship between the president and the media is more present now than ever before. The last three presidential campaigns show that media skills are a prerequisite to winning the White House, for that you can thank Theodore Roosevelt.

 Roosevelt Giving Speech at Grand Island

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Bibliography

“All Presidents | C-SPAN Survey on Presidents 2017.” C-SPAN.org

“SANITY NEEDED AS WELL AS HONESTY.” The Boston Globe Archives. April 15, 1906

“ROOSEVELT IS COMING HOME, HOORAY!” The Boston Globe Archives. June 11, 1910.

Goodwin, Doris Kearns. The Bully Pulpit. Simon & Schuster, 2013.

Lansford, Tom. Theodore Roosevelt: A Political Life. Nova History Publications, 2004.

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