A Fascination with Theodore Roosevelt
Edmund Morris, the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning biography Colonel Roosevelt, the last of his monumental trilogy about Theodore Roosevelt. The previous volumes, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Theodore Rex complete what is certainly the most comprehensive modern re-examination of the life of one of the great men of the early twentieth century. Morris is also a joy to history lovers: a writer first, historian second. This does not negate in any way his superbly researched book. It means that the books reads like an excitement, rather than the pontificating and ponderous texts one has come to expect from the increasingly pontificating and ponderous academics who revel in excavated minutiae and lose the soul of their subject in the process.
The last decade of Theodore Roosevelt’s life was definitely not his best. Retired from the presidency at only fifty – far too young for such a vibrant man – he was at a loss for what to do, so he did everything. He went big-game hunting in Africa, sending back hundreds of animal specimens to the Smithsonian. Disappointed in his chosen successor, William Howard Taft, for not perpetuating his progressive policies, and never one to deprive the people of the benefit of his opinions, he jumped back into politics with both feet. Unfortunately for himself, for the Republican party, and perhaps for the country at the time, both feet were left feet. There was damage done to his own reputation, and he would spend the last years of his life trying to repair it. His own exuberant and vital personality helped bring that about. At the time of his death he was once again the likely frontrunner in the next Presidential election.
Morris spends a large chunk of this volume on Theodore’s “last chance to be a boy” – the adventure to find the source of the River of Doubt in Brazil, now called Rio Roosevelt, in his honor. Past fifty, and not nearly as vigorous and fit as he had been a decade earlier, Roosevelt embarked on an exploration that nearly took his life. He wrote of it extensively, but he carried scars, which would never let him forget that “rash” and “foolhardy” are close relatives of brave and valiant. Malarial fevers and abscesses and infections dating from that ego-trip of an adventure would plague him for the rest of his life.
The Ultimate Tragedy of Theodore Roosevelt
But perhaps the largest part of the 560-plus pages of the book are dedicated to Roosevelt’s increasingly vociferous call for military preparedness prior to and during the United States’ involvement in World War I. While preparedness is a fine and necessary thing, the fever pitch of Roosevelt’s clarion call served him poorly. He may have been right in his thesis, but the country was not ready. The shrillness bordered on egomania. Roosevelt’s innately sharp political instincts were off; his timing was off. President Woodrow Wilson was diametrically his opposite, both in outlook and in nature. Curiously enough, while Roosevelt sincerely disliked Wilson, who he considered a wimp, in today’s parlance, Wilson found the Colonel personally charming – perhaps wrong, perhaps pig-headed, perhaps a thorn in his side – but definitely charming. There is also some supposition that Wilson may have had sincere envy of the Colonel’s ability to gain and maintain the deep regard and love of the electorate – a gift far beyond the cool Wilson’s reach.
But through the stridency, through the abject militarism, Roosevelt’s true tenderness comes through, even to the choice of an unposed photograph in the book, showing Grandpa Theodore holding a new grandchild. The personal side of him bubbles over the top when his near-daily letters to each of his children portray a devoted, affectionate and engaged father. And the pride he had sending all four of his sons to fight, knowing the likelihood that they would all return was slim (his youngest son would be killed) is in itself the tragedy of Theodore Roosevelt. Morris obviously has a great fondness for the Old Lion, and takes care to treat him neither damned nor haloed. He keeps him human, and has provided a literate and delightful voice for a man who was marvelously literate himself, with a knack for coining his own memorable phrases. Time has served to sway the Theodore image back and forth, but no one has voted to strike his image from Mount Rushmore. He added far more than he detracted.
Theodore Roosevelt died at only sixty years of age, but he was old and tired and sick – probably from living three or four lives simultaneously. His deteriorating physical condition was not well known to the country at the time of his death. They were ready to elect him President once again. And, hearing the trumpet call, had he lived, he would have lived to serve. There are those today who do not like Theodore Roosevelt, either politically or personally. Then there are those who think he was one of the greatest of our presidents and wish he were around today. Either way, no one could ever call him dull.
- Colonel Roosevelt
- Edmund Morris
- Random House, ISBN 978-0-375-50487-7
Feather Schwartz Foster - Feather Schwartz Foster, author-historian. Making the First Ladies come to life.
