Hail to the Chiefs Part XXVI: T.R.
It was the turn of the century. New technology and changes in industry meant that the United States was changing at a speed it had never known before. Business models were changing, and there was a lot of labor unrest. Unions made the news pretty regularly. There was an increasing gap in income between rich and poor. There was a major nationwide kerfuffle over the presence of a Black man in the White House.
I am, of course, talking about Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Numerous times while researching T.R., I was amazed at how relevant the issues and his quotes were to the United States today.
Roosevelt is the most recent of the presidents that appear on Mount Rushmore. I recently looked back at the pictures I took of it when I visited. One thing bothered me about the portrayal of T.R.....he's not moving! He was such a force of nature, I half expect him to come exploding out of the mountain side, start shaking hands with all the tourists, and then give an impromptu history and nature lecture on the area. What a breath of fresh air after a series of 19th century presidents that David McCullough referred to as "bland and overfed."
The majority of research I did for this entry was with Edmund Morris's amazing trilogy: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt", "Theodore Rex" and "Colonel Roosevelt." It took him over 3 decades to complete this thorough, yet very approachable, series of biographies. As for me, I did about 3 months of research. So to quote Inigo Montoya: "Lemme 'splain....no....is too much....lemme sum up!"
Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858 in New York City. (I know...doesn't feel right. I half expect to hear that he emerged fully formed out of a cowboy hat in the Dakota Territory....) He was the second of 4 children born to Theodore Roosevelt Sr. and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt. His older sister was Anna or Bamy and he had a younger brother Elliot and younger sister Corinne. In the PBS "American Experience" special on Roosevelt, they suggested that T.R. got his sense of duty from his father, but his flair and panache from his Southern born mother.
He was only a toddler when the Civil War began, but he was old enough to notice the mini version of the Civil War going on in his house. A few years later he and his future wife would watch Lincoln's funeral procession from the window of his house.
Despite his later reputation for vitality and energy, T.R. began life as a very weak and sickly child, suffering from severe asthma. In between bouts of illness, he was a voracious reader, spending a lot of time in the family library. He also was an amateur naturalist, often seen with various specimens of animals hanging out of his pockets or being preserved in jars for what he dubbed "The Roosevelt Museum of Natural History."
T.R.'s family had tried a variety of solutions to help ease his asthma symptoms, but none were successful. Finally, when T.R. was 12 his father informed him: "You have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body." From then on T.R. went to the gym every day and did chest expanding exercises. The effort paid off and is health improved considerably.
Roosevelt went to Harvard for college. It was a tremendous blow to him his sophomore year when his father died suddenly of stomach cancer.
It was also in this period of time when Roosevelt's primary interests gradually shifted from science to politics. At the time it was not seen as a respectable profession for someone of Roosevelt's class, but he pursued it anyway. In "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt", Edmund Morris suggests one of the reasons might be because he had a new love in his life: Alice Hathaway Lee.
Alice was a beautiful blonde woman also of the same wealthy upper class as Roosevelt. Unfortunately, nobody realized she was also suffering from Bright's Disease, a fatal kidney ailment.
On February 13 1884 T.R. was happily occupied as an assemblyman in the state legislature. It was there in Albany that he got the happy news that his wife had just given birth to a girl. Just a few hours later he received the news that both his wife and his mother were dying. He managed to get home in time for both his wife and mother to die on Valentine's Day. He wrote in his journal "The light has gone out of my life." After the funeral he never spoke about her again.
In the long run Alice's death may have been a blessing in disguise. The Morris book suggests that Alice, while pretty, may have not been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and this probably would have frustrated T.R. long term.
However I am grateful he had his first marriage, otherwise we would have been deprived of the future Alice Roosevelt Longworth.....who had her mother's good looks, and her father's wit. She was one of the great smart asses of the 1920's. For example, she once commented about her father "He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and baby at every christening."
To deal with his grief, after his term as assemblyman ended, T.R. went off to spend some quality time on his land in the Dakota territory. This was a life changing experience for him, and in the various biographies and documentaries most agree that without this experience, he would never have been president.
Still, he didn't fit in right away. The cowboys were distrustful of the man with glasses and the outfit bought at Tiffany's. Even the language he used was off putting. One he got excited while riding and told someone to "Hasten forward quickly there!" which became his nickname for a while. However he proved his manliness by helping to catch a pair of horse thieves....and even became friends with Seth Bullock, future sheriff of Deadwood.
Part of the fun researching this part of T.R.'s life is to see how the word "dude" has pretty much done a 180 degree turn in what it means. 100 years ago it meant more like a dandy, someone who liked to dress up in fancy clothes. Of course with my 21st century definition picturing a blonde surfer.....seeing Teddy Roosevelt referred to as "That damned dude" was all the funnier.
In 1886 T.R. was back in New York, and ran for mayor of New York City. He came in third. Afterwards he hopped on a boat to England to marry Edith Carow. She had been his childhood sweetheart. She was the one standing next to him as he watched Lincoln's funeral procession. She was a much better complement to him in both temperament and intellect than poor Alice ever could have been.
To fast forward a bit, after some time of doing more behind the scenes work for the Republican party, and working on writing books, he worked for Benjamin Harrison's administration for Civil Service Reform. After that position he was made president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners. Good cowboy that he was, he was brought in to clean up the police department. It was an eye opening experience for him walking the police beats at night through the poorer neighborhoods, to see just how bad the living conditions were for the poor and the new immigrants. He became a well known figure in New York City, people putting on glasses and big fake teeth to imitate him.
In 1897 T.R. was back in the federal government after being appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. This was the first of three situations where T.R. was placed second in command, and wound up having the opportunity to take over. The actual Secretary of the Navy was a bit of a hypochondriac who liked to spend time at home to "rest up"....something T.R. encouraged. Under Roosevelt, the Navy continued to be built up as a more world class Navy, more comparable to the United Kingdom.
Then in 1898, the Spanish- American War started in Cuba. T.R. was eager to be a part of it. He helped assemble a rather odd combination of wealthy gentlemen and cowboys for a volunteer cavalry that became known as The Rough Riders. Probably the most famous image of T.R. is of him in his Rough Rider uniform. The Spanish-American War only lasted a few months. Secretary Nicolai Hay famously called it "a splendid little war." Ironically, when the Rough Riders got on the scene, most of them weren't actually able to bring their horses along. One thing lead to another and wouldn't you know it, second in command Teddy Roosevelt was soon in charge. Funny how that kept happening. His big moment of glory or his "crowded hour" as he called it, was the Battle of San Juan Hill.
San Juan Hill propelled Theodore Roosevelt to stardom. He was officially a national hero. (It also provided him with a nasty case of malaria that would come back periodically for the rest of his life.) To take advantage of T.R.'s new found rock star status. It was proposed that he would make a good candidate for governor of New York. However, there was a catch. New York was very much still in the political machine era, and in order to be a candidate, T.R. needed the backing of political boss, Boss Platt, a.k.a. "The Easy Boss." T.R. wanted to be governor....but he didn't want to be beholden to Boss Platt, so he had a clever idea. He made an agreement with the Easy Boss that he wouldn't make any political appointments without first showing him the list of potential candidates. However....he didn't actually agree that he'd listen to what the Boss's recommendations were. Once Roosevelt was elected, Platt soon realized he had a governor that he could not control.
Boss Platt, being a rather clever man himself, came up with what he thought was the perfect solution. The perfect way to get rid of Teddy Roosevelt would be to make him Vice President. T.R. agreed to be vice-presidential candidate in the 1900 re-election campaign of William McKinley, a man Roosevelt once said "has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair." (He had a much more favorable opinion after the Spanish-American War.
The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket was successful. Mark Hanna (who was pretty much McKinley's equivalent of Karl Rove) stated in frustration, "Don't any of you realize that there's only one life between that madman and the presidency?"
Sure enough, that September, McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo at the World's Fair. Now in classic Teddy Roosevelt style he wasn't say, just down the road like Andrew or Lyndon Johnson. T.R. was taking a vacation on top of a mountain. "Here I come to save the daaaaaaaaaaay!" (OK he didn't actually say that, but that's what I picture.)
T.R. of course promised to continue McKinley's programs and ideas, but very quickly transformed the presidency into his own image. So once again, lemme sum up.
A Visit From Booker T. Washington/race relations
Early on in his administration T.R. invited African-American educator and activist Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. This caused a huge uproar, especially in the South.
Race relations were at a low point. Lynchings were still pretty regular occurrences. Although at the time, one particularly notorious lynching happened in Delaware. That's right, not Alabama, not Georgia...DELAWARE.
At the same time over in Russia the pogroms, or Russian persecution of the Jews, was in full force. T.R. sent money to one of the organizations for the victims. He asked his advisors if he should speak out against the pogrom, and they very strongly discouraged him. He responded: "I suppose it would be very much like the Tsar spreading his horror of our lynching the Negroes."
Coal Strike
In 1902, he successfully negotiated an agreement that ended the Coal Miner's strike. What I found most interesting was one of his tactics was to contact the Librarian of Congress and request a book on the history of Poland. He wanted to understand the background of most of the miners. I wish more of our presidents had that sort of foresight.
Panama Canal
It was T.R. who successfully got the ball rolling on the Panama Canal. I always thought it was a bit shady of him to pretty much cause a revolution in Panama, just so we could go in, and take over the Canal, and have it be under the American jurisdiction. Although on reading more about it, while the Americans weren't particularly honorable about it....the Colombians also really dropped the ball. They would first agree to allow the Canal to be built in their Panama territory....and then would refuse until they had more money. So pretty much like many a sitcom star that got a bit too greedy about their paycheck...the show went on without them.
National Parks
Next time you go to a national park, thank Teddy Roosevelt. During his administration, 5 new national parks were created, 150 national forests, and 18 national monuments. Some of this took some maneuvering as Congress rapidly was passing laws to take that power away from him.
Nobel Peace Prize
Now it's kind of funny that such a hawk like T.R. would get the Nobel Peace Prize. It kind of reminds me of the Tom Lehrer quote that "satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize." However unlike in the situation 100 years later with President Obama (who I think pretty much got it for not being George W. Bush)....Roosevelt did earn it. He successfully negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.
However, even in the successful peace negotiations, you can also detect the rumblings of World War I, just 8 years away. Morris made a particularly astute observation about the remarks various world leaders made to T.R. "He did not notice, or bother to notice, the subtler signals they sent forth: the Tsar's unconscious separation of himself from his subjects, the Kaiser's readiness to speak for every person on the planet, the Mikado's enigmatic formality." While we're being all foreshadowy, I should also point out that in this year a teenager named Adolf Hitler, whose high school buddies enjoyed greeting each other with a "Heil", had been expelled from school the year before. He was living off orphan benefits and trying to make a living as an artist in Vienna....the place he later said taught him how to be anti-Semitic.
Anyway....back to T.R. T.R. got elected in his own right in 1904. He was so excited about the nomination that he made a a statement he'd live to regret....that he would not seek re-election in 1908. He stuck to that promise, but it meant he had to find a successor. He went with his buddy William Howard Taft. Taft was so agreeable, T.R. mistakenly thought they were on the same page on just about everything. However Taft privately was considerably more conservative than Roosevelt.
Taft won the election. T.R., who was only 50, like every smart retiree knew he should be elsewhere so he could stay out of Taft's way. So he and his son Kermit went on a lengthy African safari together. Yes, T.R. had a son named Kermit. Kermit seemed to be the one that he wrote the most letters to. Every time there was a "Dear Kermit" scenes like this would pop into my brain:
After the safari, T.R. took a lengthy trip in Europe, meeting with several of the heads of state, and even representing the United States at the funeral of Edward VII.
When he returned home, he couldn't stay silent for long about his disapproval of Taft's policies. A rift formed
between the two men that never totally went away. T.R. decided to run for president in the 1912 election. Despite proving to be very popular in the primaries, Taft still got the Republican nomination. So Teddy decided to form the Progressive or "Bull Moose" party. However Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who actually had a lot of the same views as Roosevelt, ultimately won.
T.R. tried to distract himself. He went on a calamitous trip in the River of Doubt in Brazil. (That expedition could be a book in and of itself.) Long story short, Roosevelt's health never totally recovered from that misadventure, although they did wind up changing the name of the river to the Rio Teodoro.
World War I started. When the United States entered the conflict, T.R. eagerly volunteered to do another Rough Rider type thing. Wilson declined. The Roosevelt clan was bitter about it. In one documentary I was watching his granddaughter said the family is STILL mad about it!
All 4 of the Roosevelt son's enlisted though. The youngest, Quentin, was killed in action. T.R. never quite recovered from that. His health steadily declined until his death in 1919. But like Lincoln....you haven't heard the last of T.R.
Of course, I want to end this entry on a high note. So here is my tribute to T.R.
I am, of course, talking about Teddy Roosevelt's administration. Numerous times while researching T.R., I was amazed at how relevant the issues and his quotes were to the United States today.
Roosevelt is the most recent of the presidents that appear on Mount Rushmore. I recently looked back at the pictures I took of it when I visited. One thing bothered me about the portrayal of T.R.....he's not moving! He was such a force of nature, I half expect him to come exploding out of the mountain side, start shaking hands with all the tourists, and then give an impromptu history and nature lecture on the area. What a breath of fresh air after a series of 19th century presidents that David McCullough referred to as "bland and overfed."
The majority of research I did for this entry was with Edmund Morris's amazing trilogy: "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt", "Theodore Rex" and "Colonel Roosevelt." It took him over 3 decades to complete this thorough, yet very approachable, series of biographies. As for me, I did about 3 months of research. So to quote Inigo Montoya: "Lemme 'splain....no....is too much....lemme sum up!"
Theodore Roosevelt was born on October 27, 1858 in New York City. (I know...doesn't feel right. I half expect to hear that he emerged fully formed out of a cowboy hat in the Dakota Territory....) He was the second of 4 children born to Theodore Roosevelt Sr. and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt. His older sister was Anna or Bamy and he had a younger brother Elliot and younger sister Corinne. In the PBS "American Experience" special on Roosevelt, they suggested that T.R. got his sense of duty from his father, but his flair and panache from his Southern born mother.
He was only a toddler when the Civil War began, but he was old enough to notice the mini version of the Civil War going on in his house. A few years later he and his future wife would watch Lincoln's funeral procession from the window of his house.
Despite his later reputation for vitality and energy, T.R. began life as a very weak and sickly child, suffering from severe asthma. In between bouts of illness, he was a voracious reader, spending a lot of time in the family library. He also was an amateur naturalist, often seen with various specimens of animals hanging out of his pockets or being preserved in jars for what he dubbed "The Roosevelt Museum of Natural History."
T.R.'s family had tried a variety of solutions to help ease his asthma symptoms, but none were successful. Finally, when T.R. was 12 his father informed him: "You have the mind, but you have not the body, and without the help of the body the mind cannot go as far as it should. You must make your body." From then on T.R. went to the gym every day and did chest expanding exercises. The effort paid off and is health improved considerably.
Roosevelt went to Harvard for college. It was a tremendous blow to him his sophomore year when his father died suddenly of stomach cancer.
It was also in this period of time when Roosevelt's primary interests gradually shifted from science to politics. At the time it was not seen as a respectable profession for someone of Roosevelt's class, but he pursued it anyway. In "The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt", Edmund Morris suggests one of the reasons might be because he had a new love in his life: Alice Hathaway Lee.
Alice was a beautiful blonde woman also of the same wealthy upper class as Roosevelt. Unfortunately, nobody realized she was also suffering from Bright's Disease, a fatal kidney ailment.
On February 13 1884 T.R. was happily occupied as an assemblyman in the state legislature. It was there in Albany that he got the happy news that his wife had just given birth to a girl. Just a few hours later he received the news that both his wife and his mother were dying. He managed to get home in time for both his wife and mother to die on Valentine's Day. He wrote in his journal "The light has gone out of my life." After the funeral he never spoke about her again.
In the long run Alice's death may have been a blessing in disguise. The Morris book suggests that Alice, while pretty, may have not been the sharpest knife in the drawer, and this probably would have frustrated T.R. long term.
However I am grateful he had his first marriage, otherwise we would have been deprived of the future Alice Roosevelt Longworth.....who had her mother's good looks, and her father's wit. She was one of the great smart asses of the 1920's. For example, she once commented about her father "He wants to be the bride at every wedding, the corpse at every funeral, and baby at every christening."
To deal with his grief, after his term as assemblyman ended, T.R. went off to spend some quality time on his land in the Dakota territory. This was a life changing experience for him, and in the various biographies and documentaries most agree that without this experience, he would never have been president.
Still, he didn't fit in right away. The cowboys were distrustful of the man with glasses and the outfit bought at Tiffany's. Even the language he used was off putting. One he got excited while riding and told someone to "Hasten forward quickly there!" which became his nickname for a while. However he proved his manliness by helping to catch a pair of horse thieves....and even became friends with Seth Bullock, future sheriff of Deadwood.
Part of the fun researching this part of T.R.'s life is to see how the word "dude" has pretty much done a 180 degree turn in what it means. 100 years ago it meant more like a dandy, someone who liked to dress up in fancy clothes. Of course with my 21st century definition picturing a blonde surfer.....seeing Teddy Roosevelt referred to as "That damned dude" was all the funnier.
In 1886 T.R. was back in New York, and ran for mayor of New York City. He came in third. Afterwards he hopped on a boat to England to marry Edith Carow. She had been his childhood sweetheart. She was the one standing next to him as he watched Lincoln's funeral procession. She was a much better complement to him in both temperament and intellect than poor Alice ever could have been.
To fast forward a bit, after some time of doing more behind the scenes work for the Republican party, and working on writing books, he worked for Benjamin Harrison's administration for Civil Service Reform. After that position he was made president of the board of New York City Police Commissioners. Good cowboy that he was, he was brought in to clean up the police department. It was an eye opening experience for him walking the police beats at night through the poorer neighborhoods, to see just how bad the living conditions were for the poor and the new immigrants. He became a well known figure in New York City, people putting on glasses and big fake teeth to imitate him.
In 1897 T.R. was back in the federal government after being appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. This was the first of three situations where T.R. was placed second in command, and wound up having the opportunity to take over. The actual Secretary of the Navy was a bit of a hypochondriac who liked to spend time at home to "rest up"....something T.R. encouraged. Under Roosevelt, the Navy continued to be built up as a more world class Navy, more comparable to the United Kingdom.
Then in 1898, the Spanish- American War started in Cuba. T.R. was eager to be a part of it. He helped assemble a rather odd combination of wealthy gentlemen and cowboys for a volunteer cavalry that became known as The Rough Riders. Probably the most famous image of T.R. is of him in his Rough Rider uniform. The Spanish-American War only lasted a few months. Secretary Nicolai Hay famously called it "a splendid little war." Ironically, when the Rough Riders got on the scene, most of them weren't actually able to bring their horses along. One thing lead to another and wouldn't you know it, second in command Teddy Roosevelt was soon in charge. Funny how that kept happening. His big moment of glory or his "crowded hour" as he called it, was the Battle of San Juan Hill.
San Juan Hill propelled Theodore Roosevelt to stardom. He was officially a national hero. (It also provided him with a nasty case of malaria that would come back periodically for the rest of his life.) To take advantage of T.R.'s new found rock star status. It was proposed that he would make a good candidate for governor of New York. However, there was a catch. New York was very much still in the political machine era, and in order to be a candidate, T.R. needed the backing of political boss, Boss Platt, a.k.a. "The Easy Boss." T.R. wanted to be governor....but he didn't want to be beholden to Boss Platt, so he had a clever idea. He made an agreement with the Easy Boss that he wouldn't make any political appointments without first showing him the list of potential candidates. However....he didn't actually agree that he'd listen to what the Boss's recommendations were. Once Roosevelt was elected, Platt soon realized he had a governor that he could not control.
Boss Platt, being a rather clever man himself, came up with what he thought was the perfect solution. The perfect way to get rid of Teddy Roosevelt would be to make him Vice President. T.R. agreed to be vice-presidential candidate in the 1900 re-election campaign of William McKinley, a man Roosevelt once said "has no more backbone than a chocolate eclair." (He had a much more favorable opinion after the Spanish-American War.
The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket was successful. Mark Hanna (who was pretty much McKinley's equivalent of Karl Rove) stated in frustration, "Don't any of you realize that there's only one life between that madman and the presidency?"
Sure enough, that September, McKinley was assassinated in Buffalo at the World's Fair. Now in classic Teddy Roosevelt style he wasn't say, just down the road like Andrew or Lyndon Johnson. T.R. was taking a vacation on top of a mountain. "Here I come to save the daaaaaaaaaaay!" (OK he didn't actually say that, but that's what I picture.)
T.R. of course promised to continue McKinley's programs and ideas, but very quickly transformed the presidency into his own image. So once again, lemme sum up.
A Visit From Booker T. Washington/race relations
Early on in his administration T.R. invited African-American educator and activist Booker T. Washington to the White House for dinner. This caused a huge uproar, especially in the South.
Race relations were at a low point. Lynchings were still pretty regular occurrences. Although at the time, one particularly notorious lynching happened in Delaware. That's right, not Alabama, not Georgia...DELAWARE.
At the same time over in Russia the pogroms, or Russian persecution of the Jews, was in full force. T.R. sent money to one of the organizations for the victims. He asked his advisors if he should speak out against the pogrom, and they very strongly discouraged him. He responded: "I suppose it would be very much like the Tsar spreading his horror of our lynching the Negroes."
Coal Strike
In 1902, he successfully negotiated an agreement that ended the Coal Miner's strike. What I found most interesting was one of his tactics was to contact the Librarian of Congress and request a book on the history of Poland. He wanted to understand the background of most of the miners. I wish more of our presidents had that sort of foresight.
Panama Canal
It was T.R. who successfully got the ball rolling on the Panama Canal. I always thought it was a bit shady of him to pretty much cause a revolution in Panama, just so we could go in, and take over the Canal, and have it be under the American jurisdiction. Although on reading more about it, while the Americans weren't particularly honorable about it....the Colombians also really dropped the ball. They would first agree to allow the Canal to be built in their Panama territory....and then would refuse until they had more money. So pretty much like many a sitcom star that got a bit too greedy about their paycheck...the show went on without them.
National Parks
Next time you go to a national park, thank Teddy Roosevelt. During his administration, 5 new national parks were created, 150 national forests, and 18 national monuments. Some of this took some maneuvering as Congress rapidly was passing laws to take that power away from him.
Nobel Peace Prize
Now it's kind of funny that such a hawk like T.R. would get the Nobel Peace Prize. It kind of reminds me of the Tom Lehrer quote that "satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger won the Nobel Peace Prize." However unlike in the situation 100 years later with President Obama (who I think pretty much got it for not being George W. Bush)....Roosevelt did earn it. He successfully negotiated an end to the Russo-Japanese War in 1905.
However, even in the successful peace negotiations, you can also detect the rumblings of World War I, just 8 years away. Morris made a particularly astute observation about the remarks various world leaders made to T.R. "He did not notice, or bother to notice, the subtler signals they sent forth: the Tsar's unconscious separation of himself from his subjects, the Kaiser's readiness to speak for every person on the planet, the Mikado's enigmatic formality." While we're being all foreshadowy, I should also point out that in this year a teenager named Adolf Hitler, whose high school buddies enjoyed greeting each other with a "Heil", had been expelled from school the year before. He was living off orphan benefits and trying to make a living as an artist in Vienna....the place he later said taught him how to be anti-Semitic.
Anyway....back to T.R. T.R. got elected in his own right in 1904. He was so excited about the nomination that he made a a statement he'd live to regret....that he would not seek re-election in 1908. He stuck to that promise, but it meant he had to find a successor. He went with his buddy William Howard Taft. Taft was so agreeable, T.R. mistakenly thought they were on the same page on just about everything. However Taft privately was considerably more conservative than Roosevelt.
Taft won the election. T.R., who was only 50, like every smart retiree knew he should be elsewhere so he could stay out of Taft's way. So he and his son Kermit went on a lengthy African safari together. Yes, T.R. had a son named Kermit. Kermit seemed to be the one that he wrote the most letters to. Every time there was a "Dear Kermit" scenes like this would pop into my brain:
Click to viewAfter the safari, T.R. took a lengthy trip in Europe, meeting with several of the heads of state, and even representing the United States at the funeral of Edward VII.
When he returned home, he couldn't stay silent for long about his disapproval of Taft's policies. A rift formed
between the two men that never totally went away. T.R. decided to run for president in the 1912 election. Despite proving to be very popular in the primaries, Taft still got the Republican nomination. So Teddy decided to form the Progressive or "Bull Moose" party. However Democrat Woodrow Wilson, who actually had a lot of the same views as Roosevelt, ultimately won.
T.R. tried to distract himself. He went on a calamitous trip in the River of Doubt in Brazil. (That expedition could be a book in and of itself.) Long story short, Roosevelt's health never totally recovered from that misadventure, although they did wind up changing the name of the river to the Rio Teodoro.
World War I started. When the United States entered the conflict, T.R. eagerly volunteered to do another Rough Rider type thing. Wilson declined. The Roosevelt clan was bitter about it. In one documentary I was watching his granddaughter said the family is STILL mad about it!
All 4 of the Roosevelt son's enlisted though. The youngest, Quentin, was killed in action. T.R. never quite recovered from that. His health steadily declined until his death in 1919. But like Lincoln....you haven't heard the last of T.R.
Of course, I want to end this entry on a high note. So here is my tribute to T.R.