I have a friend I see only over Christmas. Every year, we exchange books as gifts. This year, it turned out we got the same book for each other: Patti Smith's beautiful and heartbreaking memoir Just Kids. But in addition, my friend loaned me his copy of the first installment of Edmund Morris' biography of Theodore Roosevelt, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt.
To be frank, I would probably not be reading this book right now were it not for two conditions. First, the book was borrowed, and I feel obliged to return it in a tmely manner, but only after having read it. Second, I'm on sabbatical right now, which gives me more free time than I would usually have. Further, with as much air travel as I'm doing between my home in Pennsylvania and where I am spending my sabbatical in Indiana, I need something to do while in flight and while waiting in airports.
In any case, I am reading this book right now. It won the Pulitzer Prize, and in my opinion, the prize was deserved. The book is rich with detail expressed in a lively fashion. The reader gets a specific understanding of both the times and the environment in which TR lived.
Either intentionally or unintentionally, biographer Morris also provided some less than flattering glimpses into Republican philosophy, certain elements of which have remained constant since the time of TR. Follow over the fold to see what I mean...
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So, back to Morris' TR biography. I suppose I should first say that Teddy Roosevelt, Jr., was truly a remarkable character. He was precociously bright as a child, though asthmatic and prone to sickness. When he was in good health, he was an unstoppable ball of energy. Throughout his life, the was a continuous tension between the intellectual and the physical. He wrote his first book (a scholarly analysis of the naval aspects of the war of 1812 and commentary on present naval policy, which ultimately came to be used as a textbook) at the age of 23 while simultaneously attending law school. The times he always claimed to be having the most fun was when he was living outdoors performing strenuous tasks in awful weather. Few people could keep up with him either intellectually or physically, and nobody kept up with him in both categories.
One of TR's favorite physical pursuits was, famously, hunting, and he spent a significant amount of time in his 20s out in Badlands of the Dakota Territory doing just that. He also established a cattle ranch as an investment in that area. While discussing the color and dangers of life in the lawless West, Morris perhaps inadvertently provides a glimpse into the Republican inner soul:
[Roosevelt] returned to [the town of] Medora [in Dakota Territory] on 12 April [1885], just in time to witness Billings County's first election as an organized community. Under the supervision of one "Hell-Roaring" Bill Jones, who stood over the ballot box with a brace of pistols, the votes were cast with a minimum of bloodshed, and a county council duly returned to power. While its first edict, promising "to hang, burn, or drown any man that will ask for public improvements at the expense of the County,"could have been worded more diplomatically, it at least voiced sound Republican sentiments, and Roosevelt had every reason to be optimistic about the future of representative government in the Badlands.
So, if I'm interpreting this correctly, an edict demonizing anyone that proposes spending money to make improvements from which all citizens can benefit is "voicing sound Republican sentiments." If this has always been true of Republicans, it goes a long way to explain what they are doing now. The proposed destruction of Medicare, Social Security, the EPA, and programs for the poor. And those with the greatest obligation to pay for any civic program, the richest of the rich, are let off the hook with generous tax cuts. Hey, you're all on your own!
I never expected such a clear expression of Republican philosophy, one that still lives and is operating at full force today, from the biography of a President who died nearly 90 years ago.
And now, on to the comments!
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From your humble diarist:
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