Theodore Roosevelt

The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Theodore Rex by Edmund Morris

Colonel Roosevelt by Edmund Morris

Tier One

When people ask me who my favorite president is, they are met with a long and rambling response wherein I name three or four presidents and refuse to pick one. It’s like picking your favorite child (or so I hear). Abraham Lincoln is our greatest president. Robert Caro’s series on Lyndon Johnson are the finest books written on a president. Ulysses S. Grant is the owner of my favorite single-volume biography. But Theodore Roosevelt is the most fascinating man to hold the office and, perhaps, the most fascinating of all Americans.

His life doesn’t seem possible. Sometimes, I’ll read an older history book set in Roman or Greek times, and I’ll wonder how anyone could’ve believed the tales being told about some near mythic person. It’s like people who believe that The Iliad or The Odyssey is history instead of poetry.

And then you read about Theodore Roosevelt and realize that in a thousand years, if anyone is around to read books and Morris’ monumental trilogy still exists, they’ll say the same things about Teddy.

A boy who couldn’t get out of bed and was beset with physical ailments that made it impossible for him to go outdoors and set about overcoming those limitations through rigorous exercise (he managed to expand his chest to an almost comical level) and later went on to be a boxer and cowboy. A rising politician who, at forty, gave that up to fight in the Spanish-American War. An author, adventurer, and orator. A man who was once shot in the chest and went on to give his prepared 90-minute speech. And that is all without mentioning that he just so happened to be President of the United States at a time when that nation became a global power.

That sounds made up. It sounds like a boy dreaming of what a life could be. But it happened. And at the end of the day, if you are to only read about one president, you could do a lot worse than picking Teddy.

This is not to say he was a man without faults. After all, a faultless man would make for a dull biography. Teddy could be petty and argumentative. He was stubborn and often refused good advice. He was vain and egotistical and bordered on cruelty with his treatment of his former friend and later rival, Howard Taft.

But that is what makes him so fascinating. He is inspirational and infuriating. Brilliant and deranged. The famous line from Whitman’s Song of Myself might as well have been written about Teddy. “I am large, I contain multitudes.”

The historical reputation of Roosevelt is in the eye of the beholder. Conservatives can claim him for his often hawkish foreign policy. Liberals can claim him for his progressive economic beliefs and actions in trust-busting. He was at times a friend to business, at times a steadfast defender of workers. He was an ardent conservationist (the work he was proudest of) and an avid hunter.

Unfortunately, for this project, there’s not enough space to investigate the full breadth of a man like this. Morris wrote three excellent and exhaustive biographies on him, and I wanted more. There is no way for me to encompass even a modicum of Roosevelt’s life in the short space I have here (and even if I could, I wouldn’t dare, just read Morris’ books).

Instead, I will talk briefly about something I fixate on with Teddy—his perseverance and willingness to take risks.

It is not a coincidence that the man who, as a boy, physically overcame his ailments would go on to see life as a series of obstacles to overcome, but it makes his accomplishments no less impressive. He nearly gave up on public life when his first wife, Alice Hathaway Lee, died of kidney failure a mere eleven hours after his mother died. “The light has gone out of my life” was all he could write in his diary that day. For a time, he threw himself into his work as a New York State Assemblyman, but it didn’t take, and before long, he was in the Dakota Territory living the life of a rancher, having retired from politics.

Think of the different world we’d live in if he’d stayed there. He could’ve inspired some Larry McMurtry novels, a Yankee politician turned cowboy. It’s a movie I’d watch, but it is a far cry from the imprint on the nation and the world that Roosevelt would have (there is an excellent section of the first of these three books on him hunting down, arresting, and transporting a group of boat thieves.).

But the man who swore he’d never remarry or rejoin the political arena was back before long, newly married and running for Mayor of New York City. Part of this was down to his incessant need for movement. He was always a boy in many regards. It was as if he was making up for his boyhood years he lost to confinement. That energy wouldn’t allow him to settle into the life of a cattle rancher, but it’s important to note his perseverance here. It would become a defining trait of his life. He was not a man who was unfamiliar with setbacks, failures, and criticism. It is safe to say that without those things, he never would’ve been the man and the historical figure we know. After all, it is only a person who is willing to risk failure who can know great success.

I don’t mean to overstate the importance of some historical figure in my own life, but I will say that I often draw inspiration from Roosevelt. It’s not that I agree with all his politics (though I think most of his positions age quite well), but rather that I find the man inspiring. I have chosen a difficult field (writing) to find success in. The odds are long, and the likelihood of failure is high. Sometimes, I look in the mirror and wonder if it would be better to forge a safer path.

But then I think of Teddy, and I read his famous speech about the man in the arena, and I feel a chill run down my spine and know that I need to at least. I know that even failure is not truly failure because at least you tried. I’ll leave you with that speech and the sincere advice you read these books. They are enthralling and brilliant and have left an indelible mark on me.

“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.”

Tell me that doesn’t give you chills.