Down Jamaica Way with Theodore Roosevelt the Diplomat

Book reviewed in this article:
William Tilchin, Theodore Roosevelt and the British Empire: A Study in Presidential Statecraft     

汉密尔顿的远东之行与罗斯福政府远东政策的调整

1933年8月至1934年3月,奉美国远东司司长霍恩贝克之命,副司长汉密尔顿对远东进行了长达半年的考察,并最终向国务院提交了关于日本、关于"满洲国"、关于中国、关于美国远东政策的四份报告。这四份报告对第一届罗斯福政府的远东政策走向产生了重大影响:美国重新调整了远东政策,即在中日之间维持某种平衡,并持续对该区域的出口;摆脱了对战争的担忧,认为短期内苏日、美日间不会发生武装冲突;对伪满洲国继续奉行"不承认主义"。     

Theodore Roosevelt and the Bureau of Corporation: Executive-Corporate Cooperation and the Advancement of the Regulatory State

Abstract

Theodore Roosevelt's trust policy has been viewed as “progressive” by his contemporaries, dictated by big business by the New Left, and as a precursor to autonomous institutional development most recently. This thesis will instead analyze Roosevelt's actions through a pragmatic lens. Roosevelt's first legislative action in relation to the trusts was to create the Bureau of Corporations. Whilst seemingly ushering in transparency in business affairs through its reporting function, Roosevelt secured executive jurisdiction over publicly circulating its findings, paving the way for private, state-corporate cooperation. Obtaining sensitive information through the promise of discretion, Roosevelt held an implicit leverage over companies, allowing him to threaten to publicize illegalities if they refused to abandon them. The Bureau became a forum for closed-door agreements which achieved tangible amelioration of practice, whilst minimizing the damage entailed by a public airing of corporate America's dirty laundry. I will analyze several Bureau investigations and illustrate the learning curve by which Roosevelt and big business came to an agreement over the parameters of cooperation. Mired by mixed signals from both sides during its early investigations, the emergence of dialectical negotiations over corporate practice and the extent of government-induced public scrutiny came to embody a fledgling cooperative process. These investigations illustrate the pragmatic means by which Roosevelt pursued a conservative, yet effective, reigning in of big business power.