On December 15th, 1908, a special message from President Theodore Roosevelt was sent to Congress lambasting a “vilifier of the American people,” a man who needed to be put behind bars for his egregious and repeated attempts to accuse his own government of corruption. The man in question was Joseph Pulitzer, editor and proprietor of a popular, often sensationalist newspaper known as The World. His crime, in Roosevelt’s eyes, was libel for propagating unsubstantiated claims of corruption in the building of the Panama Canal.

Although rumors of scandal had long lingered after the canal’s completion in 1902, six years later, The World’s reporters stumbled across a blackmail allegation incriminating one of the deal’s arbiters and had doggedly pursued the story to ensure that it would come back to haunt Roosevelt. The entire story centered on a claim that the $40 million, purportedly given to the French-owned New Panama Canal Company had actually been pocketed by the owner of the French Canal Syndicate, William Nelson Cromwell, and had directly benefitted Roosevelt’s brother in law Douglass Robinson and the brother of the newly elected president Charles P. Taft. Roosevelt was incensed at the cloud these accusations cast over his presidency, and made it clear he would wield whatever power he could to bring Pulitzer and his inflammatory paper to justice.

Throughout his career, Roosevelt had cultivated an image of himself as an honest, courageous, and respectable man of the people. After returning from the Spanish-American War as a member of the famed “Rough Riders,” Roosevelt ascended through the ranks of the Republican Party, serving as Governor of New York in 1899 and as William McKinley’s vice presidential running mate the following year. In 1901, after McKinley was assassinated, Roosevelt suddenly found himself sworn in as the 26th President of the United States—the youngest president in the nation’s history. By the time the Panama Canal’s controversy resurfaced, Roosevelt had only three months left in his tenure as president. The Panama Canal was one of his greatest achievements in office, and, after fighting tirelessly to quell the dogged scrutiny he’d received from the press, he was none too pleased to see his legacy’s conclusion tainted.

Unlike Roosevelt, Pulitzer had found his way to notoriety through a career ridiculed with rejection and cutthroat manipulation. Born in Budapest, Hungary in 1847, Pulitzer left home seeking to make a name for himself in the armed forces. After serving in the Union Army as a paid mercenary during the Civil War, Pulitzer found his niche in journalism, and quickly earned himself a reputation as ruthless, capricious, and relentless in his work ethic. On May 10th, 1883, Pulitzer purchased a small paper that had fallen into disrepair, known as The New York World. Rechristening it as The World he also rebranded the image of the paper with colorful illustrations, bloody accounts of crime, fiery condemnations of politicians, and comics. Pulitzer used sensationalist tactics to bolster the paper’s readership while ruthlessly attacking corruption.

While Pulitzer doubted the allegations against Roosevelt were true—the evidence was shaky at best—he wasn’t about to admit it. In 1908, after Roosevelt delivered a scathing rebuttal to Congress, and both Roosevelt and Pulitzer began to bolster their cases. Already, Roosevelt had contacted U.S. Attorney Henry Stimson to determine if there was any possibility of convicting Pulitzer and The World for criminal libel against the U.S. Government. The answer, Simpson soon discovered, was no; only select state courts held laws against criminal libel. Roosevelt was not deterred, and pressed Justice Department attorneys to summon grand juries in New York City and Washington D.C.

Meanwhile, Pulitzer, isolated on his yacht, published an editorial that raised the stakes. Putting aside the unsubstantiated claims, Pulitzer focused on the repercussions a case like this meant the integrity of the American press and the First Amendment. “As far as the World is concerned,” he wrote, “its proprietor may go to jail, if Mr. Roosevelt succeeds, as he threatens; but even in jail the World will not cease to be a fearless champion of free speech, a free press and a free people. It cannot be muzzled.”

Pulitzer, realizing he would need more than just public and press support, dispatched reporters to scavenge for clear evidence of misconduct in Washington D.C., Paris, and Panama. He also brought on board two loyal associates to his legal team, who quickly divined the government’s legal strategy. Government prosecutors weren’t confident they could convict Pulitzer in federal court, so they decided to prosecute him by using antiquated state laws from Maryland and New York that hadn’t been enforced in nearly a century.

One irrepressible reporter for The World believed he might have Pulitzer’s ticket for deliverance. In Paris, reporter Earl Harding claimed he had stumbled across clear evidence of collusion and illegal profit by American investors in the acquisition of the Panama Canal. After his leads dried up in Panama, Harding headed to Bogota, Colombia to search for evidence, hiring a one-armed translator named Edwin Warren Guyol to accompany him. The two men were determined to dig up evidence by any means necessary, even if that meant breaking a few laws along the way. After weeks of wild exploits—which included drugging and searching a wine merchant, pickpocketing a drunken official, and rifling a minister’s cabinet—proved fruitless, Harding returned to the U.S. with nothing to show besides a letter of complaint decrying his tactics from the Colombian government.

Back in the United States, Roosevelt’s case started to fray. In Maryland, a judge dismissed the U.S. attorney’s motion to try The World’s publisher (The Press Publishing Company) because it would set a dangerous precedent for newspapers accused of libel. If the government could cherry pick Maryland for a trial, it could choose any venue, theoretically forcing a newspaper to simultaneously defend itself in all 50 states, which would be financially ruinous. Furthermore, The World had every right to question all aspects of the Panama Canal.

Undeterred, Roosevelt pressed ahead and on January 25th, 1910, the case was heard in U.S. District Court in Manhattan. Pulitzer’s attorney, De Lancey Nicoll, challenged Roosevelt’s constitutional right to prosecute. He decried the use of an obscure act established in 1808 to be used in instances of murder on the high seas and not, as the government contended, for libel cases. The judge ruled in favor of Nicoll.

Undeterred, Roosevelt along with President Taft, who succeeded him in office, pushed the lawyers to appeal to the Supreme Court, a majority of whose members had been appointed by Roosevelt and Taft, to overturn the lower court’s decision throwing out the case. On January 3, 1911, the court ruled that the federal government could not pursue a libel case simply on the grounds that a newspaper was in circulation on its property, especially since ample state remedies existed. Reading the decision from the bench, Chief Justice White said: “It would be impossible to sustain this prosecution without overthrowing the very State law by the authority of which the prosecution can be alone maintained.”

Pulitzer was ecstatic. In an editorial, The World trumpeted its victory in a front-page editorial.

When asked to comment, Teddy Roosevelt, for perhaps one of the only times in his life, told a World reporter, “I have nothing to say.”