Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense: The Courtroom battle to save his Legacy By Dan Abrams and David Fisher

Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense: The Courtroom battle to save his Legacy

By Dan Abrams and David Fisher

“No man is above the law and no man is below it. Nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as right, not asked as a favor” Theodore Roosevelt page 361

Dan Abrams was born in Manhattan, New York on May 20, 1966. He attended Duke University from 1984 to 1988 graduating Cum Laude with a B.A in political science. While at Duke University he anchored a newscast on the student-run cable channel and was Vice President of the student government. He then attended Columbia University Law School, graduating with a J.D in 1992. He also has received an honorary law degree from Stetson University. After graduating he went to work as a reporter for court T.V where he ended up covering such trails of such folks as the Menendez Brothers, Dr. Jack Kevorkian, O.J Simpson, and the International War Crimes Tribunal. His breakout moment was when he covered the Supreme Court Case of Bush vs Gore (we will now pause so my editor can scream in fury and beat the earth in rage (And why shouldn’t I?)) and was the first to correctly interpret the decision. Perhaps because of that, he was given his own show in 2001, The Abrams Report. That show ran until 2006, being replaced in 2007 by Live with Dan Abrams, which was changed from the Verdict with Dan Abrams. He is also published in numerous magazines and newspapers, book-wise he has published four books, three of which including this one are about historical trails in American history. David Fisher is a professional writer who has been going for over three decades and as of this time has written over eighty books, twenty-four of them landing on the New York Times bestseller list. He started out on the staff of Joan Rivers show, That Show, from there moved to Life Magazine, becoming their youngest reporter in the magazine's history where he covered mainly sports and youth culture. He moved into freelance writing with a book about Malcolm X and has since written everything from meditation to the real-life confessions of mob hitmen. He's also co-written a vast number of books with everyone from William Shatner, Representative Robert Wexler, and Bill O'Reilly.

The topic of our review, Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense was published in 2019 by Hanover Square Press. The book itself covers one of the many trails to bear the title of “Trial of the Century,” this trial being the case of Barnes v Roosevelt. This was a civil case, to be specific it was a libel case. William Barnes Jr. Owner and Publisher of the Albany Evening Journal sued TR for libel when in 1914 Theodore Roosevelt (or TR as I like to call him) gave a statement that was widely published accusing Barnes of being a behind the scenes political boss, who worked with democrat political boss Murphy, then leader of the Tammany Hall political machine, to thwart reforms and resist the will of the people in favor of their own narrow political and economic interests (An accusation that I should note, was absolutely true. Politics back then was largely a system of patronage, especially in the large cities. Social welfare programs were non-existent, and the parties utilized that fact for open vote-buying and ballot stuffing. In fairness, socialist parties did the same thing, but it wasn’t cynical. {I’m not sure I buy that it wasn't cynical, but I will state that if the socialist parties didn’t do that they wouldn’t get anywhere. So it’s a kinda needs must situation [It’s like this. The Dems and GOP were like “Hey, I’ll help feed your kids if you vote for me and my slate of policies that fuck you in the ear.” The socialists were like “Hey, our entire existence is predicated on helping you. So I’m gonna help feed your kids, and if you elect me to office, I’m gonna make life really shitty for your landlord”]}. This article was reprinted across the country and enraged Barnes who was planning to run for a Senate seat and believed that TR was trying to kneecap him to open the way for his own selected candidate. So against the advice of legions of people, he sued Theodore Roosevelt for libel and the five-week trial began on a pleasant April 19, 1915, in Syracuse New York, moved there because Roosevelt's counsel argued successfully that there couldn't be a fair trial in Albany due to Mr. Barnes political and economic influence. It took five weeks and was covered by every major newspaper in the United States and was sharing the headlines with news of World War I in Europe. Before we dive into this, some context.

At the beginning of the 20th century, politics was a lot less transparent and in many ways more corrupt as hard as that can be to imagine for some people (See above). Due to longer transportation and communication times, politics were also more regional. The national organizations of the Democrats and the Republican parties had less of a grip on the state parties and many of the state and local parties were under the rule of political bosses. These “bosses” were often unelected men who operated behind the scenes using control of funds and other resources to exercise control over elected officials (They used the same techniques Stalin did as General Secretary during his power struggle with Trotsky. Control of funds, control of the calendar. Never under-estimate the importance of calendar. If your enemies don’t know when the meeting is, you can pack it with your supporters.). Another method of control that they held was being able to decide who could run for what office. Because in most states at the time, there were no open primary elections. Who would get to run for governor, senator, mayor, or other offices was decided in smoke-filled back rooms by men no one had voted for and the average American had no idea who they were. However, their control wasn't total and was challenged by the Progressive movement of the time who managed in the first decade of the 1900s to push through popular vote primaries in thirteen states. Theodore Roosevelt won nine of them but was denied the nomination by political maneuvering by Barnes and other political bosses who controlled the delegates of the remaining states. They were frankly determined to keep Theodore Roosevelt and his reformers from gaining any real power. Old TR, never one to take being cheated well, founded the Bull Moose Party and made his own run for a 3rd term as President. Unfortunately, this ended up with Woodrow Wilson becoming President with only 41% of the vote. Woodrow is on my list of worst Presidents of the US but that's a whole another review and I'm gonna ask my editor to keep the well deserved anti-Woodrow rant short since it is off-topic (Oh, I will wait. Soon.).

Rather than giving up, Roosevelt waged political war to push a reformist agenda by getting supporting candidates elected to positions both in the Republican Party and in state and local governments. Nor was he the only one, Democrats had their own progressive members who openly followed his cue and waged battle upon their own political bosses. One of those democrats was a distant cousin to TR, a young state senator by the name of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who would actually serve as a witness at the trial in support of TR. The progressives of both parties preached an idea of expanding voter choice and power over the party while pursuing greater corporate regulation and strong anti-corruption laws and reducing the power of wealth over politics (Does this seem strangely familiar to anyone? The reason it is familiar is because history often rhymes. Similar dynamics lead to similar outcomes, and without going into Deep Theory, suffice to say that this process is baked into class struggle. Any reforms made to the state that challenge the supremacy of Capital over politics are eventually subverted by Capital. {This is where I’m going to step as the anthropologist in the room and note that my editor is kinda getting tunnel vision here. We see this struggle in every system, elite groups fight reforms that chip away at their power. We see this in the Capitalist West, the People’s Republic of China, in the USSR, feudalism, and Roman and Greek states. The struggle between elites who want to maintain or expand their power and privileges and everyone else is present in every system of government and organization attempted by humanity in history [I mean, this is when I would have to start talking about Historical Materialism but I don’t want the readers to start beating their heads into their desks]} Your grandkids will be fighting it too.{This one I agree with completely, as long as there is power to wield or status to achieve in any way shape or form, you will have people looking to subvert the game for unfair privileges and advantages. When we say Vigilance is the price of freedom, we mean vigilance against the elite groups within your own society as much as any foreign aggressor.}). The Machine Politicians as they were often called, championed the status quo claiming that reforms would lead to socialism (the Bible was right, there is nothing new under the sun (See?)), anarchy, and the degradation of the republic into populism and the mob. It was in this environment that likely feels incredibly familiar to my astute readers that good old TR did what came naturally to him during an intense factional fight, he attacked. To be fair to the man, he couldn't do anything else and still be Theodore Roosevelt. Calling Barnes corrupt, working to subvert the popular will of the people, and working in cooperation with the Democrat bosses to maintain a dirty system that held the common man down. When Barnes sued, Roosevelt could have demurred and claimed he was being taken out of context or that his remarks should be understood in the context of a campaign speech and therefore not meant to be literal. Roosevelt however doubled down and declared that every single word in his article was God’s honest truth and that the Truth could not be libel. The stage was set, whoever lost this court battle would see their political influence and power ruined beyond repair and could likely take their political movement to the grave with them.

Mr. Abrams and Mr. Fisher take great care to not only detail Mr. Barnes and Mr. Roosevelt but go further into the legal defense and theory behind the case explaining how American libel laws differ from Great Britain, where I am given to understand that the truth is not always an absolute defense (You are correct. Or rather, in the US, the plaintiff must prove that the statement was not true and made in bad faith because the plaintiff always has the burden of proof, and good faith error is protected. In the UK, it is the opposite, and the Defendant must prove the truth of their statement. Thus, the protection of true statements is far weaker. This is why the Church of Scientology likes to sue people for Libel and Defamation in the UK.). In a strange linkage, one of the primary creators of this doctrine is Alexander Hamilton who argued for that idea in two cases. The first leading to jury nullification (Jury Nullification - where the Jury declares the defendant not guilty even though they are guilty because the law or application is unjust - is perfectly legal in the US because of Double Jeopardy. However, they try to weed out people who know about it in Jury Selection. So if you are up for jury duty, and you are ever asked if there is any reason why you might deliver a verdict on any basis other than the law, just say no and look confused.) of the charges, the second causing his client to be found guilty but with no penalty leveled. From those beginnings, the idea steeped into the American legal system that in a free society, a man who told the truth even about the wealthy and powerful could not be guilty of libel and should not, could not be punished if we were to remain a free people. These laws have been hotly opposed by wealthy and powerful interests and as recently as four years ago the current (fascist) President threatened to rewrite libel laws to make it easier to sue his opponents into submission. He has as of this writing utterly failed to pass any such rewrites. It was on that axle that the court case spun, however, as Theodore Roosevelt and his team of high powered lawyers fought against Barnes and his team of high powered lawyers to prove that TR had spoken nothing less but the truth as he understood it. Mr. Abrams and Mr. Fisher also go into great detail on the lawyers and take a good look at the entire legal team on both sides as these were some of the most respected legal minds of their time confronting each other in the courtroom. I don't have the space to discuss these men with any justice so I will just encourage you to read the book to find out more about them.

In fact, I'm going to encourage you to read the book in general. This book is a detailed and colorful look at an important moment in our history that has faded completely from public memory. The fact is that the court win reinvigorated Theodore Roosevelt and his Progressive moment, which would find its greatest expression strangely enough in a Democrat administration. FDR's old New Deal programs drew a lot of inspiration from TR's Square Deal, especially the reforms that TR couldn't get through Congress at the time (The New Deal was literally a deal FDR struck with the lefties to avoid a revolution…{Given that FDR had fought for a lot of that stuff his entire life… No. It was the achievement of something he had wanted for a long time. I mean the man went up against the Supreme Court to make this shit happen} Oh I’m not saying he didn’t want it. He did. But that deal was how he sold it and got the political class on board with implementing it. “I’ve struck a deal with the reds, they won’t agitate for guillotines as long as we do XYZ”.). It also helped end Barnes and his death-grip over Albany and control over New York state politics. The book also includes a fair amount of direct quotations from TR, the lawyers, and Mr. Barnes so they are allowed to tell their own story here. Which is often invaluable. In fact, the back of the book has Roosevelt's statement that started the court case in full. Theodore Roosevelt for the Defense: The Courtroom battle to save his Legacy by Dan Abrams and David Fisher gets an A for being an informative, truthful, and incredible read.

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Red text is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black text is your reviewer Garvin Anders