Speaker 1: History Versus is a production of I Heart Radio and
Speaker 1: mental flaws. The carvers stand on the scaffolding hundreds of
Speaker 1: feet high, clad in overalls and face masks, small pneumatic
Speaker 1: hammers in hand. The clatter of drills and granite dust
Speaker 1: fills the air, as they have almost every day of
Speaker 1: construction on that rushmore for years, these men have worked
Speaker 1: to sculpture four presidential faces out of the mountain, and
Speaker 1: now they're about to begin finishing work on the massive sculptures.
Speaker 1: Final face work on the face had begun in ninety seven,
Speaker 1: and it had been dedicated with much fanfare, including a
Speaker 1: firework show two years later, before it was even close
Speaker 1: to finished. To get to this point, men called pointers
Speaker 1: had marked where and how deep to drill powder. Monkeys
Speaker 1: or workers in charge of the dynamite had dangled from
Speaker 1: the top of the mountain and carefully placed small charges
Speaker 1: to precisely blast away rough exterior rock to reveal white,
Speaker 1: sparkling granite. Drillers using air powered jackhammers had further removed
Speaker 1: stone to get to the carving surface, and carvers, many
Speaker 1: of whom had worked their way up from other jobs
Speaker 1: in the mountain, had created polka dot as honeycomb grids
Speaker 1: on the stone, using a hammer and chisel to remove
Speaker 1: extra granite. Throughout the process, the features on the sixty
Speaker 1: foot tall face had slowly slowly emerged and gained definition
Speaker 1: to eleven foot wide eyes, a twenty foot tall nose,
Speaker 1: a massive mustache, and the mere suggestion of glasses across
Speaker 1: the bridge of the nose and the upper cheeks, an
Speaker 1: illusion which will look like full frames to the spectators below.
Speaker 1: It's now time for what sculptors call fine finishing. The
Speaker 1: carvers switch on their neumatic cameras, also known as bumpers.
Speaker 1: Each is equipped with four bits of steel that clatter
Speaker 1: against the rock, removing or bumping it a fraction of
Speaker 1: an inch at a time. Cautiously, they apply the hammers
Speaker 1: to the stone, buffing the honeycomb grid it off of
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt's massive chin. We know that tr was an adventurer,
Speaker 1: a man who fought corruption and advocated for a square
Speaker 1: deal for all, the sporting hunter who lent his name
Speaker 1: to the Teddy Bear, a person who cared deeply about
Speaker 1: conserving nature for the next generation. And yeah, the guy
Speaker 1: in the night at the Museum movies, and I'm aunt Rushmore,
Speaker 1: but there is so much more to Roosevelt's legacy from
Speaker 1: mental flaws and I hurt Radio. This is History Versus,
Speaker 1: a podcast about how your favorite historical figures faced off
Speaker 1: against their greatest foes. I'm your host, Aaron McCarthy, and
Speaker 1: for this the final episode of our first season, we're
Speaker 1: taking a look back at TR's legacy. This episode is
Speaker 1: History Versus Theodore Roosevelt. Mount Rushmore is probably one of
Speaker 1: the things people think of first when they think about
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt's legacy. The mountain, named for New York lawyer
Speaker 1: Charles Rushmore in the eighties, is located in the Black
Speaker 1: Hills of South Dakota, and I head there on a
Speaker 1: human August Day with the goal of talking to some
Speaker 1: other visitors abo Theodore Roosevelt, his legacy and why they
Speaker 1: think he's on the mountain. I don't know about you,
Speaker 1: but I hate striking up a conversation with strangers, so
Speaker 1: I spend a fair amount of time procrastinating. It rains
Speaker 1: and then it hails, and in the safety of the
Speaker 1: gift shop, I contemplate buying some tr sox that say
Speaker 1: speaks softly and carry a big stick, and also giving
Speaker 1: up on this whole interviewing random people thing. But when
Speaker 1: I head back outside, some interview subjects find me. They're
Speaker 1: the Pope's parents, Ben and Sally, and kids, Harry and Alice,
Speaker 1: and they're from London. They came here in part because
Speaker 1: Alice saw Mount Rushmore on an episode of Phineas and
Speaker 1: ferb Harry's favorite president of the Mountain is Washington, but
Speaker 1: Alice prefers Roosevelt because he was in Knight at the Museum.
Speaker 1: So what else do you know about him besides his
Speaker 1: exploits and Knight at the Museum. He liked to ride
Speaker 1: horses and he was a cool guy. We wanted to
Speaker 1: bring them here anyway, but it was a particular wish
Speaker 1: of Alice's because sheet growing up being that image TV
Speaker 1: that's been Harry and Ellis's dad. If you had to
Speaker 1: guess why he was up on the mountain today, why
Speaker 1: he was chosen, what would you say, Here's Harry. You've
Speaker 1: probably made a big commitment to the country and did
Speaker 1: something that people wanted to remember. Next, I chat with
Speaker 1: Lane Johnson, who hails from Texas. Lane knows all about
Speaker 1: tiers trip to the Amazon. So his response when I
Speaker 1: asked why tr is on the mountain makes sense, I
Speaker 1: would say because of his sense of adventure. Sharon Right
Speaker 1: from Wisconsin says, a lot has changed since the first
Speaker 1: time she came here. What was it like back then?
Speaker 1: Very quiet and very serene. What what can you tell
Speaker 1: me about t R Well, he was kind of the
Speaker 1: the goal getter for the National Park System, and he
Speaker 1: really was one to help preserve the outdoors for everybody,
Speaker 1: to keep it from being everything being commercialized. Although I'd
Speaker 1: say this is getting pretty commercialized. It's free to come here,
Speaker 1: but you have to pay to park, so it's not
Speaker 1: really free. You used to be able to come here
Speaker 1: and enjoy it without having to pay to park. Finally,
Speaker 1: I chat with Aretha Wilson from Ohio of the presidents
Speaker 1: up on the mountain. She says Roosevelt is her favorite.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt respects US supporters, no matter how big or small,
Speaker 1: so that's a good thing. We're all standing here today
Speaker 1: thanks to South Dakota state historian Don't Robinson, who wanted
Speaker 1: to create a tourist destination in the Black Hills so
Speaker 1: more people would come to South Dakota. Initially, he wanted
Speaker 1: to carve famous figures from the history of the West
Speaker 1: into granite spires located nearby. But the artists chosen to
Speaker 1: create the monument goods On. Borg Lam had a completely
Speaker 1: different location and vision in mind the president's. When it
Speaker 1: came down to which presidents to put in the mountain,
Speaker 1: most were no brainers. Jefferson was the author of the
Speaker 1: Declaration of Independence and had expanded the country through the
Speaker 1: Louisiana Purchase. Washington was the father of the country and
Speaker 1: allowed Jefferson's ideas to become a reality. Lincoln kept the
Speaker 1: country together in a time of great strife. The tr
Speaker 1: Well trra was controversial. Here's Marine McGee, Bollinger Chief of
Speaker 1: Interpretation and Public Affairs, and Mount Rushmore National Memorial. The
Speaker 1: whole carving process that idea begins in Well. Roosevelt had
Speaker 1: died in nine so most people alive at that point
Speaker 1: in they knew him, they knew of his politics, they
Speaker 1: knew of his presidencies, and there were a lot of
Speaker 1: people that didn't like him, so he was controversial. But
Speaker 1: Borgland did like him, and it was Burglan's work of art,
Speaker 1: and he made the final decision, Theodore Roosevelt will go
Speaker 1: up there and he'll go up there because of the
Speaker 1: Panama Canal. Today people look at it and say, well,
Speaker 1: of course, Theodore Roosevelt's up there, the conservation president. But
Speaker 1: that's not what Borglan was thinking. Burgo also knew Tier personally.
Speaker 1: He had campaigned for the bull moose when he ran
Speaker 1: for president in nine twelve. Mount Rushmore consists of a
Speaker 1: fine grained granite called the Harvey Peak granite. The fine
Speaker 1: grain means the rock holds together well when you carve it,
Speaker 1: but it also makes it harder to carve. On the
Speaker 1: plus side, that means it takes a while to a road.
Speaker 1: The erosion rate of the Harney granite is an inch
Speaker 1: every ten thousand years. This is tough rock. In other words,
Speaker 1: people are going to be staring at those faces on
Speaker 1: the mountain for a long time. Creating Mount Rushmore was
Speaker 1: not easy work. Finishing the sculpture took fourteen years, and
Speaker 1: Borglum died before it was completed. His son Lincoln took
Speaker 1: over for him. Tire's face was the last one finished
Speaker 1: in one according to Rex Allen Smith in his book
Speaker 1: The Carving of Mount Rushmore. At its dedication in nine twelve,
Speaker 1: thousand people attended the largest attendance of any of the
Speaker 1: face dedications. Today, the memorial gets more than two million
Speaker 1: visitors annually. Here's one funny thing about Tier being on
Speaker 1: Mount Rushmore. He probably would have hated it. He didn't
Speaker 1: want any monument of him, like a statue with him
Speaker 1: or him on horseback. He hated those kind of monuments.
Speaker 1: He wanted monuments to be either utilitarian in nature, like
Speaker 1: naming a building after him, or to be artistic. That's
Speaker 1: Michael Cullinane, a professor of US history at the University
Speaker 1: of Roehampton in London and author of Theodore Roosevelt's Ghost,
Speaker 1: The History and Memory of an American Icon. Colinane is
Speaker 1: a presidential historian and a diplomatic historian, and he spent
Speaker 1: the last ten years looking into Tier's legacy as well
Speaker 1: as his accomplishments and foreign policies. What's the strangest place
Speaker 1: you've seen the Roosevelt legacy sort of manifest in pop culture?
Speaker 1: You know, he shows up in the weirdest places. Miley
Speaker 1: Cyrus has got a tattoo on her arm of a
Speaker 1: quote from Theodore Roosevelt. Miley's tattoo aside or maybe included,
Speaker 1: colin Nane describes Roosevelt's legacy over the last one hundred
Speaker 1: years since his death as a roller coaster. When he
Speaker 1: dies in the right, the first American red Scare is
Speaker 1: going on, and communism is, you know, is a communist
Speaker 1: or a boogeyman. And Roosevelt is very much seen as
Speaker 1: this patriotic American and and also a conservationist in the
Speaker 1: progressive and all those things as well. But it's almost
Speaker 1: like he's a saint. After he dies, that'll change. When
Speaker 1: historian Henry Pringle published his biography of tr in Ye,
Speaker 1: Colinane describes Pringle's book as a purposeful revision of Roosevelt
Speaker 1: that downgraded him from a saint and helped inaugurate what
Speaker 1: has been called the Crazy Teddy period. That image of
Speaker 1: Roosevelt as a juvenile guy who made impulsive decisions lasted
Speaker 1: until the nineteen sixties. There's a reappraisal, but it never
Speaker 1: really goes back to the Saint Lee version or or
Speaker 1: back to that crazy Teddy version. Instead, what we get
Speaker 1: is a much more moderate version that a nuanced man
Speaker 1: with his fault you know, warts and all, as some
Speaker 1: people say, and I think actually that's been good for
Speaker 1: the tr brand over the last few years, because it
Speaker 1: means he's this really human character that people can can
Speaker 1: relate to. So he's not perfect and he's not a demon.
Speaker 1: He's something in between, which I think most of us are.
Speaker 1: Tears family was extremely protective of his legacy, especially Edith.
Speaker 1: I've always referred to Edith Roosevelt as the gatekeeper of
Speaker 1: TR's legacy because she was able to pass over documents
Speaker 1: to historians, she was able to restrict other um other
Speaker 1: writers from using those documents. In fact, there's some famous
Speaker 1: incidences in terms of copyright law and which Edith tried
Speaker 1: to stop people that had letters that Roosevelt wrote to them.
Speaker 1: She tried to stop having those published. And so really
Speaker 1: she acts as the gatekeeper for his memory and his legacy,
Speaker 1: and throughout her life until she dies in the late forties,
Speaker 1: she that's her role um and she she really helps
Speaker 1: the Memorial Association's work towards the image that she wants
Speaker 1: to see promoted. Tears legacy was so complicated that even
Speaker 1: his own family couldn't agree on exactly what it was.
Speaker 1: The Hyde Park Roosevelt's A. K. Franklin and by marriage
Speaker 1: Eleanor and the Oyster Bay Roosevelt's Alice, Ted Jr. Etcetera. Famously,
Speaker 1: but it heads over it because at that point, after
Speaker 1: TR dies, the legacy becomes the next generation, so they
Speaker 1: get to shape the legacy of TR. And Alice and
Speaker 1: Ted are pushing in one direction, and Franklin and Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt's niece Eleanor, who of course marries Franklin, are pushing
Speaker 1: in an opposite direction. And that that plays out really
Speaker 1: up until the sixties, when Eleanor and Franklin and Ted
Speaker 1: are are dead. Alice lives on until the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 1: but by that stage Theodore Roosevelt had kind of become
Speaker 1: a bipartisan figure um maybe in part because Franklin Roosevelt
Speaker 1: promoted him as a as as the Square Deal, as
Speaker 1: being the forerunner to the New Deal. When we talk
Speaker 1: about TR's legacy, we often talk about how he was
Speaker 1: the first modern president. As Kathleen Dalton wrote in Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt A Strenuous Life, he is heralded as the architect
Speaker 1: of the modern presidency, as a world leader who boldly
Speaker 1: reshaped the office to meet the needs of the new
Speaker 1: century and redefined America's place in the world. When Roosevelt
Speaker 1: became president, technology was changing rapidly, and so is life
Speaker 1: for everyday Americans thanks to industrialization. Here's Tyler caliberta education
Speaker 1: technician at Sagamore Hill National Historic Site. The country has
Speaker 1: changed by the time Roosevelt's president, and it's the twentieth century.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt becomes president in nineteen o one, and all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, you have the United States operating on a
Speaker 1: world scale, where previously had been pretty isolation US. Now
Speaker 1: you have territories in the Pacific. Um. You fought a
Speaker 1: war with the Spanish and Cuba uh um. Roosevelt begins
Speaker 1: his presidency in the United States is still occupying the Philippines.
Speaker 1: They're building the Panama Canal during his presidency. And you
Speaker 1: have adjustments in technology. So the presidency, all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: is kind of a full time job. You can't have
Speaker 1: a break for the summertime. He was called to be
Speaker 1: a modern president because of these changes in technology and
Speaker 1: changes in policy, changes of the United States policy on
Speaker 1: the world stage. Presidency has changed. In Roosevelt being a
Speaker 1: young man, um, I think was fit for things to
Speaker 1: rapidly change during his presidency. In my opinion, it was
Speaker 1: also Roosevelt's image control that made him a decidedly modern president.
Speaker 1: When he got into politics, he started writing posterity letters
Speaker 1: for historians to study, and he was doing it for
Speaker 1: the Graham as the kids say, long before social media
Speaker 1: was a thing, to cultivate his desired cowboy image. For example,
Speaker 1: he had a photo snap to himself in a buckskin
Speaker 1: suit that he had made for his time with the Dakotas,
Speaker 1: but someone knew him later commented that it was indisputable
Speaker 1: evidence of the rank tenderfoot. Also, though the photo appeared
Speaker 1: to have been taken into forest, it was actually taken
Speaker 1: in a studio in New York. When he pursued both
Speaker 1: thieves down the Little Missouri River, Tiara made sure to
Speaker 1: bring a camera with him and to get a photo
Speaker 1: of himself watching over the bandits, But it was a reenactment,
Speaker 1: and according to some the men in the picture weren't
Speaker 1: even the actual thieves. But there were also sides to
Speaker 1: Roosevelt that he wouldn't let the public see, like how
Speaker 1: he wouldn't allow himself to be photographed in his tennis outfit,
Speaker 1: just one more example of his image control. For Colinane,
Speaker 1: it was Roosevelt's use of the bully pulpit as a
Speaker 1: pr tool that made him the first modern president. I
Speaker 1: think Rosevelt ability to speak to the average voter and
Speaker 1: to get across a version of policy that he wants
Speaker 1: to see take shape. It's really his administration that's the
Speaker 1: first to do that. He is a public relations um dynamo.
Speaker 1: He ins to the war in the Philippines as an example.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt declared the war over in nineteen o two, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't over. The war goes on really until nineteen fifteen,
Speaker 1: but officially the war has ended in nineteen o two,
Speaker 1: and that public relations perspective is a huge prove The
Speaker 1: role of president as chief promoter is the one that
Speaker 1: Roosevelt really takes on and makes that that's what makes
Speaker 1: the big change in office. Many of TR's actions during
Speaker 1: his tenure fundamentally changed the office of the president. Like
Speaker 1: say his decision to get things done via executive order.
Speaker 1: He'd make a call and then leave Congress to debate it.
Speaker 1: He didn't act impulsively. He thought things through very carefully.
Speaker 1: I think he had very strong convictions, and he acted
Speaker 1: very assertively. Maybe that's the word that I would choose
Speaker 1: to use. That He is incredibly assertive as a president,
Speaker 1: and I think every president since him, maybe with the
Speaker 1: exception of the Republican presidents in the nineteen twenties, but
Speaker 1: beside those three presidents, more often than not presidents have
Speaker 1: acted assertively and they said that it's it's their prerogative
Speaker 1: to act that way. And I mean Roosevelt paved the
Speaker 1: way for for the presidency to be that kind of
Speaker 1: of an instrument of power. Before Roosevelt, no president had
Speaker 1: hit three hundred executive orders, but Tire signed more than
Speaker 1: a thousand, and future presidents followed his example. Woodrow Wilson
Speaker 1: and Calvin Coolidge would each far exceed that amount, and
Speaker 1: they would all be eclipsed by Roosevelt yet again, when
Speaker 1: FDR issued three thousand, seven hundred and twenty one executive
Speaker 1: orders over the course of his twelve years in office,
Speaker 1: a record that probably isn't going anywhere anytime soon. Tear's
Speaker 1: view that he could do anything not expressly forbidden by
Speaker 1: the Constitution or by law was also a game changer
Speaker 1: for the presidency. The presidency has sort of gone that
Speaker 1: way with trs constitutional view, in that the president, if
Speaker 1: there are non enumerated powers, the president can still execute them.
Speaker 1: I mean things like going to war is a really
Speaker 1: good example. When he sent the Worship to Panama to
Speaker 1: support them, he was effectively sending American troops into a
Speaker 1: war zone to support a revolution. And since then it
Speaker 1: that's happened quite a bit. According to Colinane, Tear's decision
Speaker 1: to intervene internationally has been one of the most lasting
Speaker 1: legacies of his administration. Many other presidents have followed suit
Speaker 1: Woodrow Wilson did this a lot, but you can think
Speaker 1: about other interventions later on, from you know, Vietnam to Afghanistan,
Speaker 1: where the United States president has deployed troops and then
Speaker 1: Congress has had to respond, and Congress has tried to
Speaker 1: reign in presidential power and a number of different realms,
Speaker 1: but perhaps most in war powers, and gave the Passive
Speaker 1: Warpowers resolution in the seventies to to restrict the amount
Speaker 1: of time at the president can send troops abroad, but
Speaker 1: that's not really been an effective measure to stop the president.
Speaker 1: Historians today are still debating about some of trs actions
Speaker 1: on the international stage, including those he took to speed
Speaker 1: up the Panama Canal, so the Panama Canal and how
Speaker 1: you feel about the Panama Canal often has a very
Speaker 1: clear correlation with how you think about American power, more
Speaker 1: generally an American imperialism and empire. If you view Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: decision to take Panama, or to force Panama to have
Speaker 1: this revolution and then take the canal, then you then
Speaker 1: you see American power or something that's a benevolent force
Speaker 1: in the world. But if you see that as an
Speaker 1: overstretch of American power, then you probably think that Roosevelt
Speaker 1: was acting beyond, you know, the the norms and the
Speaker 1: regulations of the Constitution and of what America is supposed
Speaker 1: to be. I think, actually the Panama decision strikes an
Speaker 1: ongoing paradox in American history and particularly about American foreign relations,
Speaker 1: which is that either the United States is to act
Speaker 1: as an example for the world, or the United States
Speaker 1: is to actively set the example for the world. In
Speaker 1: other words, should America stand passively as an example and
Speaker 1: hope others follows suit, or should America be more proactive.
Speaker 1: I think all foreign policies wind up putting the United
Speaker 1: States in one of those two roles, and Roosevelt very much,
Speaker 1: very much saw the United States is acting. Um you know,
Speaker 1: not just as an example, but setting the example for
Speaker 1: the world. And so that's that's why he acts the
Speaker 1: way he does with with Panama. It's one of those
Speaker 1: things that successive generations of politicians have continued to debate.
Speaker 1: It's been a flashpoint. It's a really good case study
Speaker 1: to think about the differences that we have in our
Speaker 1: foreign policies. Some of TR's other actions on the global
Speaker 1: stage perhaps sent the message they meant to at the time,
Speaker 1: but didn't necessarily change the course of history. I'm talking
Speaker 1: about tiers display of American naval power, the Great White Fleet.
Speaker 1: It was showing off and it was an opportunity to
Speaker 1: show the world that there is this emerging naval force.
Speaker 1: And there's no question that after nine the United States
Speaker 1: as a naval force will only grow in stature from
Speaker 1: that point on. It's a two ocean naval force. There's
Speaker 1: only one other country in the world that's a two
Speaker 1: ocean naval force, and that's Britain, you know, famed at
Speaker 1: this time for ruling the waves. So this was this
Speaker 1: was a big pronouncement on the world stage, but didn't
Speaker 1: really have any effect that it stopped Japan, for example,
Speaker 1: from taking over colonies in the Pacific and eventually becoming
Speaker 1: one of the access powers in World War Two. I
Speaker 1: don't link so um, and it certainly made the Japanese
Speaker 1: more deft at how they negotiated. It meant that foreign
Speaker 1: relations with Britain, say, for example, in the Pacific, became
Speaker 1: more important, but Roosevelt's fleet didn't actually change the balance
Speaker 1: of power in the Pacific. We'll be right back. I
Speaker 1: came into this podcast wanting to show Theodore Roosevelt not
Speaker 1: as a caricature but as a real person, and no
Speaker 1: discussion of Theodore Roosevelt's legacy would be complete without talking
Speaker 1: about his views on race, which we've touched on a
Speaker 1: bit in other episodes. Well, r views on race, I
Speaker 1: had to say, are probably one of the most interesting
Speaker 1: bits about him, and I don't think we've given enough
Speaker 1: air time to his views on race. I think like
Speaker 1: we're living in a kind of sound bite culture where
Speaker 1: if you can't get your view across very quickly, then
Speaker 1: you know, no one understands it, or they don't want
Speaker 1: to understand it, you know. And I think trs views
Speaker 1: on race were really quite complicated, and they're presented as
Speaker 1: effectively white supremacy or um or just playing racist, I guess,
Speaker 1: but there's so much more to it than that. Colinane
Speaker 1: is right. I've read a bunch of books about tr
Speaker 1: for this podcast, and have read that his views of
Speaker 1: race were complicated, that he had a divided heart on
Speaker 1: matters of race, and that when it came to African
Speaker 1: Americans his attitude was enlightened. Many books seem to only
Speaker 1: touch on the subject, perhaps because tires thoughts on race
Speaker 1: are incredibly complex. So with that said, we won't be
Speaker 1: able to impact all of Tira's views on race here.
Speaker 1: If after you listen to this you're interested in learning more,
Speaker 1: i'd wreck have been picking up Thomas Dyer's book, Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt and the Idea of Race. In previous episodes, we've
Speaker 1: discussed how tiers thoughts on race impacted how he dealt
Speaker 1: with other nations. So in this discussion, we'll be focusing
Speaker 1: mostly on his attitudes toward African Americans and Native Americans.
Speaker 1: But before we get into tr specifically, it's important to
Speaker 1: put his views into context. We all know that tr
Speaker 1: was a curious guy who thought of himself as a scientist.
Speaker 1: So what were the quote unquote scientific views of race
Speaker 1: at the time. To find out, I called Dr Justine
Speaker 1: Hill Edwards, an assistant professor of history at the University
Speaker 1: of Virginia whose focuses on African American history, the history
Speaker 1: of slavery, and the history of capitalism. There were UM
Speaker 1: scientists who were then trying to find a scientific research
Speaker 1: based rationale for UM sex segregation and for white racial superiority.
Speaker 1: Really in the late nineteen in the early twentieth centuries,
Speaker 1: UM there there was a rise in racial science and
Speaker 1: in particular eugenics, so that UM it kind of provided
Speaker 1: a more kind of scientific rationale for ideas of white
Speaker 1: racial purity and why that should be the standard in
Speaker 1: the ideal. And so it's really finding a scientific way
Speaker 1: to explain why white superiority was good and why it
Speaker 1: should be a goal in so social policy making. Why
Speaker 1: would white people be looking for a scientific reason to
Speaker 1: prove that they were superior. Well, I mean, you're talking
Speaker 1: about a time, especially in the U in the US
Speaker 1: UH posts of Civil War post re reconstruction, where in
Speaker 1: particular African Americans are working to really gain their civil rights.
Speaker 1: You have the increase of immigration from places like Japan,
Speaker 1: and so in trying to do a little bit, and
Speaker 1: so you have this kind of increase in kind of
Speaker 1: racial and ethnic diversity that begins to occur in this period.
Speaker 1: And so, and interestingly, it's not just in this this
Speaker 1: period where where you you have kind of white Americans
Speaker 1: in many ways publicly struggling with the fear in the
Speaker 1: the idea that they're kind of losing ground to racial
Speaker 1: and ethnic minorities. Direy writes that t R grew up
Speaker 1: in an atmosphere of Victorian privilege, was bombarded from early
Speaker 1: childhood with ideas that stressed the superiority of the white
Speaker 1: race and the inferiority of non whites, and his privilege
Speaker 1: undoubtedly shaped his views of race now interestingly enough, because
Speaker 1: he was born in New York City, because he was
Speaker 1: born in the North and not in the South like
Speaker 1: in South Carolina and Georgia. Um, he probably held, um,
Speaker 1: what we would consider more progressive or what his contemporaries
Speaker 1: would probably consider more progressive thoughts about race. But um,
Speaker 1: but let's not kind of conflate his progressivism with ideas
Speaker 1: of that he was in favor of racial equality, because
Speaker 1: surely he was not. Growing up, Tierra's mother had told
Speaker 1: him stories about her childhood in the South, which painted
Speaker 1: slaves as childish dependence and ignored the horrors of slavery.
Speaker 1: The tales must have had some influence on his views.
Speaker 1: He also read a lot. Dire writes that Roosevelt gloried
Speaker 1: and longfellow Saga of King Olaf, which celebrated the Nordic tradition,
Speaker 1: a key ingredient in nineteenth century theories of white supremacy,
Speaker 1: and that he was also influenced by the Teutonic myth
Speaker 1: Nieba lunga Lead, which he read during his time living
Speaker 1: with a German family when he was a teenager. Dyer
Speaker 1: says that its influence can clearly be seen in Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: winning of the West. Main reads books and the magazine
Speaker 1: Are Young Folks were among Tira's favorite things to read,
Speaker 1: and they contained ugly racial stereotypes about Native Americans and
Speaker 1: African Americans. Darwin's theory of evolution was also an influence,
Speaker 1: as were some of Roosevelt's professors at Harvard. Tier continued
Speaker 1: to read voraciously after his college career and also corresponded
Speaker 1: with a number of scientists of his era. According to Dier,
Speaker 1: you can see all of these influences in Tier's views
Speaker 1: and writings about race, which he viewed both in terms
Speaker 1: of nationality and in terms of skin color. Roosevelt believed
Speaker 1: that the white English speaking race was the most advanced race,
Speaker 1: but he was also a proponent of neo lamarchianism. The
Speaker 1: idea came from a French scientist named Jean Baptiste Lamarck,
Speaker 1: who predated Darwin and believed that certain traits could be
Speaker 1: cultivated and passed to later generations. While Darwin, for example,
Speaker 1: thought about a natural solution, Lamarck's idea more had to
Speaker 1: do with the idea that species could in some some
Speaker 1: way choose which traits to pass along to their offspring.
Speaker 1: This doesn't mean that one day you decide you want
Speaker 1: your future child to be a genius, and then bam,
Speaker 1: they're a genius. There are differences between Lamarckian and neo
Speaker 1: Lamarckian belief but a neo Lamarkian lecture from the eight
Speaker 1: nineties discusses the idea a Darwinist would look at the
Speaker 1: children of pianists and say that they might inherit dexterity
Speaker 1: or a good ear, but they won't inherit piano skills.
Speaker 1: They all need to learn the piano the same way
Speaker 1: their parents did, and Neo Lamarkian would counter that the
Speaker 1: child must inherit piano skills, otherwise humanity would have the
Speaker 1: same level of piano skills forever. As an example, they
Speaker 1: say that gymnasts have been getting steadily better. This is
Speaker 1: the result, according to the lecture of lifelong training of
Speaker 1: the children of acrobats and of their children. The improvement
Speaker 1: in gymnastics, therefore, is largely due to the transmission of
Speaker 1: the qualities directly acquired by training. This kind of thinking,
Speaker 1: according to Edwards, allowed people to feel more in control
Speaker 1: of their destinies, as opposed to Darwinism, where characteristics are
Speaker 1: hardwired into your DNA, changing only by mutation. And it
Speaker 1: wasn't just white people of that time who held these
Speaker 1: ideas about determinism. The famed thinker A. W. E. V. D.
Speaker 1: Boys had this idea not in a scientific way, but
Speaker 1: in a so social way of the talented tent that
Speaker 1: the top ten percent about African Americans in terms of
Speaker 1: intelligence would lead the race out of um kind of
Speaker 1: the misery of being black Americans and so dia has permantations.
Speaker 1: Part of Roosevelt's Neola Markianism was the concept of equipotentiality.
Speaker 1: Historian Kathleen Dalton writes that Lamarckians tended to accept the
Speaker 1: idea that all human capacity, including racial potential, was plastic
Speaker 1: and could be changed. Here's Michael Cullen in again. Really,
Speaker 1: what that means is that Roosevelt believed that within a
Speaker 1: generation we could remake ourselves, not completely, say, but that
Speaker 1: we could effectively learn from the mistakes of past generations.
Speaker 1: And that's that's remarkable because mean it means that we
Speaker 1: are not just beholden to reproduction in order to progress
Speaker 1: civilization or progress that you know, our gene pool, but
Speaker 1: that actually we can learn from history, which of course
Speaker 1: he was a student of history. We can learn from
Speaker 1: history and make changes within a generation that have an
Speaker 1: impact upon ourselves and in a wider sense, civilization. So
Speaker 1: that to me always struck me as an anti racist
Speaker 1: idea because in its essence it means that anyone, regardless
Speaker 1: of skin color or anything really where you were born
Speaker 1: or who you were born too, can can reach the
Speaker 1: heights that that tr saws, the heights of civilization and
Speaker 1: the heights of personal greatness. Now the reality is, though,
Speaker 1: is that he didn't believe that a lot of different
Speaker 1: races would get there. He you know, he does talk
Speaker 1: about African Americans as being far behind white Anglo Saxon's
Speaker 1: or English speaking people's white English speaking people. So there's
Speaker 1: a capacity in his thinking for equality, but it doesn't
Speaker 1: always present itself in how he views the world. We've
Speaker 1: covered Roosevelt's theory of the stages of development before, but
Speaker 1: here's a quick refresher. Tire believed that all races, nationalities,
Speaker 1: and civilizations went through certain stages. The lowest stage was
Speaker 1: savage is um, which was marked by chaos, next barbarism,
Speaker 1: during which Indire's words, military virtues were developed. Then came
Speaker 1: social efficiency, which blended military virtues with a love of order.
Speaker 1: It was followed by a stage where Dire writes, the
Speaker 1: great virile virtues diminished and were replaced by a love
Speaker 1: of ease, softness, willful sterility, and too much stress upon
Speaker 1: material possessions. And then finally the stage of decadence or death.
Speaker 1: This thinking informed his views on race both at home
Speaker 1: and abroad. Edwards Trs experienced fighting in the Spanish American
Speaker 1: War Transformative. After that war, of course, the US was
Speaker 1: seated Guam and Puerto Rico and got sovereignty of the Philippines.
Speaker 1: With his role in the Spanish American War and then
Speaker 1: his ascendancy as President UM, he presided over the not
Speaker 1: just the expansion of kind of US ideas of the
Speaker 1: democracy and military presence, but it reinforced the the idea
Speaker 1: that the native inhabitants of these new territories were somehow
Speaker 1: racially in inferior and not fully prepared to participate in
Speaker 1: the democratic project. And this kind of relays two ideas
Speaker 1: of kind of the stages of development and how he
Speaker 1: thought about international diplomacy. He believed that certain people in
Speaker 1: certain nations were not prepared to participate in democracy, um
Speaker 1: were not so socially and culturally prepared for that type
Speaker 1: of citizenship in participation. According to Dire, Roosevelt believed that
Speaker 1: certain members of other races had evolved to the point
Speaker 1: where they could participate, even if there are races as
Speaker 1: a whole hadn't gotten there yet. Dire writes that what
Speaker 1: Roosevelt said in public and in private suggests that he
Speaker 1: believed that the black was largely incapable of assuming the
Speaker 1: role of citizen, and that that opinion grew stronger after
Speaker 1: his presidency. Roosevelt remained convinced that blacks would become full
Speaker 1: citizens only very slowly dire rites. In the meantime, full
Speaker 1: citizenship would go only to those good, privileged blacks like
Speaker 1: Booker T. Washington, William Crum, and Mini Cox. Cox was
Speaker 1: a college educated black woman who had been appointed to
Speaker 1: a postmaster position in Indianola, Mississippi, by Benjamin Harrison. Her
Speaker 1: time in office was quiet until a white man decided
Speaker 1: he wanted her job, and a local politician began criticizing
Speaker 1: the town for the fact that they had accepted her
Speaker 1: in that role. The harassment got so bad that she
Speaker 1: resigned her post, but Roosevelt refused to accept her resignation
Speaker 1: and actually suspended the post office in Indianola for a time.
Speaker 1: He would not fire her or not let her reads resign,
Speaker 1: and so his standing up for her significant as well.
Speaker 1: And so and so I think think it proves that
Speaker 1: his ideas on race were complex at best, and perhaps
Speaker 1: unpredictable in many ways. Unfortunately, it never got safe enough
Speaker 1: for Cox to return to work, and after she and
Speaker 1: other black leaders told Roosevelt it would be impossible for
Speaker 1: any black person to serve in Indianola, he reopened the
Speaker 1: post office and appointed a white person. Dr Crumb was
Speaker 1: a physician whom Tier attempted to appoint to head up
Speaker 1: the customs House in Charleston, South Carolina. The controversy over
Speaker 1: the appointment lasted for years. Direy writes that Roosevelt hoped
Speaker 1: to enhance his standing with black Republicans in South Carolina
Speaker 1: and in the North, and that he achieved those ends. Still,
Speaker 1: dire notes it would be erroneous to suggest that Trs
Speaker 1: administration had developed a policy intended to promote the cause
Speaker 1: of black civil rights. The incident stands as another example
Speaker 1: of Roosevelt's commitment to the advancement of individual blacks when
Speaker 1: political advantage coincided with ideology. Tira's presidency also coincided with
Speaker 1: an increase in violence against African Americans. While he was
Speaker 1: horrified by and publicly denounced lynching, he didn't do anything
Speaker 1: to stop the violence. Minus these bigger, more public moments
Speaker 1: with a book or Tief Washington and Mini Cox. He
Speaker 1: was fairly passive on UM intervention in the real sidences
Speaker 1: of racial violence that African Americans were experiencing. UM in
Speaker 1: the early century, and so the increased incidents of lynching
Speaker 1: um that many black journalists and writers and intellectuals were
Speaker 1: trying to publicize in really important ways, and he wasn't
Speaker 1: their advocate in this way. Race was also a factor
Speaker 1: in what many today considered to be the biggest mistake
Speaker 1: of Roosevelt's presidency, the Brownsville Affair. In August, a white
Speaker 1: man was killed and a police officer wounded in a
Speaker 1: riot in Brownsville, Texas. One hundred and sixty seven black
Speaker 1: soldiers at a nearby military base were blamed for the incident,
Speaker 1: but they all proclaimed their innocence. Roosevelt demanded that the
Speaker 1: perpetrators be brought forward. When no one confessed or implicated
Speaker 1: a colleague, Roosevelt dishonorably discharged them all. He did not
Speaker 1: discharge the white soldiers these in the three men were
Speaker 1: essentially kicked out of the military. This left them without
Speaker 1: military benefits or pensions, which was a big deal because
Speaker 1: some of the members of the unit had had for
Speaker 1: about two decades and kind of lost all of their
Speaker 1: military benefits. Though some tried to get him to walk
Speaker 1: back his decision, Roosevelt refused. He would not admit that
Speaker 1: he had been wrong. It wasn't until about five decades later,
Speaker 1: during the Civil Rights movement movement that activists rallied foreign
Speaker 1: pressured members of Congress to consider Roosevelt's decision. There were
Speaker 1: Congressional hearings and um and it led to the military
Speaker 1: revoking the discharge and the soul survivors received renumeration for
Speaker 1: his service. But this was too late, of course. Outside
Speaker 1: the American Museum of Natural History as a statue of
Speaker 1: tr on horseback. Next to him on the ground are
Speaker 1: two figures, one African, one Native American. The statue is
Speaker 1: controversial today because it presents those two figures as submissive
Speaker 1: to Roosevelt, a clear picture of racial hierarchy. The museum
Speaker 1: is addressing that and Roosevelt's views on race in an
Speaker 1: exhibition called Addressing the Statue. Some of what he wrote
Speaker 1: about Native American people that African people make your teeth
Speaker 1: hurt today. That's David Hurst Thomas, a curator of anthropology
Speaker 1: at the American Museum of Natural History, and he is right.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt believed that Native Americans, according to his stages of
Speaker 1: development theory, were at the savage level, and he did
Speaker 1: not hold back in horribly and falsely maligning them. He
Speaker 1: wrote that Native Americans had an inhuman love of cruelty
Speaker 1: for cruelty's sake, and would torture men, women, children, and
Speaker 1: even animals. He also indulged in stereotypes of Native Americans
Speaker 1: as drunkards. In six Roosevelt gave a lecture in which
Speaker 1: he said, I don't go so far as to think
Speaker 1: that the only good Indians are the dead Indians, but
Speaker 1: I believe nine out of every ten are, and I
Speaker 1: shouldn't like to inquire too closely into the case of
Speaker 1: the tenth. The most vicious cowboy has more moral principle
Speaker 1: than the average in Indian. The fact that white men
Speaker 1: were pushing Native Americans out of their homelands didn't bother
Speaker 1: Roosevelt in the least. In his view, it was destiny
Speaker 1: for the white race to take over the continent, and
Speaker 1: it wasn't surprising that the superior white race had conquered
Speaker 1: the savage Indian race. Here's edwards, they were inhabiting land
Speaker 1: that was meant for white Americans. He's kind of inheriting
Speaker 1: a legacy from his presidential predecessors, the fact that they
Speaker 1: believe that Native American lands were not for Native Americans.
Speaker 1: As President, Roosevelt supported the allotment system, which broke up
Speaker 1: reservations and forced Native peoples onto smaller, individually owned lots,
Speaker 1: with the goal of assimilating them into white society. He
Speaker 1: also said that programs like Pennsylvania's Carlisle Indian Industrial School,
Speaker 1: established in eighteen seventy nine, do a special and peculiar
Speaker 1: work of great importance. At these schools, which were located
Speaker 1: far from reservations, students were given new names and quite
Speaker 1: often baptized. They all so weren't allowed to speak their
Speaker 1: native languages. In his second Address to Congress, Roosevelt wrote
Speaker 1: that in dealing with the Indians, our aims should be
Speaker 1: their ultimate absorption into the body of our people. But
Speaker 1: again Roosevelt's views were complicated. He admired the ferocity of
Speaker 1: Native American fighters and condemned white brutality against Native Americans
Speaker 1: that he had witnessed, and according to his biographer Herman Hagedorn,
Speaker 1: he treated individual Native Americans with respect despite his detestation
Speaker 1: of the race as a whole. In nineteen o five,
Speaker 1: six Native Americans rode on horseback in Theodore Roosevelt's inaugural
Speaker 1: parade a bid, according to Gilbert King at Smithsonian, who
Speaker 1: cites a contemporary newspaper to show that they had buried
Speaker 1: the hatchet forever. One of those Native Americans was Geronimo.
Speaker 1: Though tales about him were exaggerated, the Apache's reputation meant
Speaker 1: that he was the tale parents in the American West
Speaker 1: told their children to get them to behave, but he
Speaker 1: had surrendered in six He and his men had agreed
Speaker 1: to an act style of two years. They were shuttled
Speaker 1: to Florida, and while they were there, hundreds of Apachee
Speaker 1: children were relocated to the Carlisle Industrial School in Pennsylvania.
Speaker 1: The prisoners of war were eventually reunited with their families
Speaker 1: in Alabama, but their journey wasn't over. The Apaches ended
Speaker 1: up in Oklahoma, where the captives were allowed to live
Speaker 1: around Fort Sill. By the time Geronimo met with Theodore
Speaker 1: Roosevelt on that March day, he had been a prisoner
Speaker 1: of war for almost nineteen years. King writes that the
Speaker 1: warrior begged Roosevelt to send him and the rest of
Speaker 1: the Apaches back to Arizona, saying, take the ropes from
Speaker 1: our hands, but Roosevelt told Geronimo that he had a
Speaker 1: bad heart. You killed many of my people, You burned villages,
Speaker 1: and were not good Indians. He said he would wait
Speaker 1: and see how you and your people act. Commissioner of
Speaker 1: Indian Affairs Francis Luke remarked, it is just as well
Speaker 1: for Geronimo that he is not allowed to return to Arizona.
Speaker 1: If he went back there, he'd be very likely to
Speaker 1: find a rope awaiting him. He was safer in Oklahoma.
Speaker 1: Geronimo had converted to Christianity in nineteen o three, joining
Speaker 1: the Dutch Reformed Church, likely in part to influence Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: but Roosevelt never changed his mind. Later, after promising to
Speaker 1: confer with the Commissioner of Indian Affairs and Secretary of
Speaker 1: War about his case, he told Geronimo that there was
Speaker 1: no hope of letting him return to Arizona. It would
Speaker 1: only lead to more war. Tierra apologized, saying that he
Speaker 1: had no feeling against Geronimo. Geronimo never returned to Arizona.
Speaker 1: He died still a pow in nineteen o nine. According
Speaker 1: to David Hurst Thomas, Roosevelt's views toward Native Americans may
Speaker 1: have changed, however, slightly towards the end of his life,
Speaker 1: thanks him part to a trip taken out to the
Speaker 1: Four Corners. In my interest, of course is American Indians.
Speaker 1: So I looked at what he did to Indian people
Speaker 1: while he was president, and I have some real problems
Speaker 1: with that, with the Indian schools and cutting off their
Speaker 1: hair and they can't speak to language, and kill the
Speaker 1: Indian to save the hand. All this argument, he went
Speaker 1: out to the Four Corners and took a trail ride
Speaker 1: with one of his kids, and they ended up going
Speaker 1: to Hopie Country, and he wrote three pieces about that.
Speaker 1: Roosevelt observed the Hopie snake dance complex ritual that includes
Speaker 1: elements of handling rattlesnakes, But it was the ordinary lives
Speaker 1: of the Hopie that really had an impact on him.
Speaker 1: He called them a reasonably advanced and still advancing semi civilization,
Speaker 1: not savagery at all. He noted that there was big
Speaker 1: room for improvement, but so there is among whites. What
Speaker 1: he comes out of it saying is, you know, he
Speaker 1: didn't say he was wrong, but he says, now I
Speaker 1: can see there are things in these other cultures that
Speaker 1: deserved to be preserved. He still wanted the hopie to
Speaker 1: be gradually assimilated to the life of the best whites,
Speaker 1: he said, but now he wanted that assimilation to be
Speaker 1: shaped as to preserve and develop the very real element
Speaker 1: of native culture possessed by the Native Americans, which he said,
Speaker 1: in the end may become an important contribution to American
Speaker 1: cultural life. He hoped they would be absorbed into the
Speaker 1: white population on a full equality. In Roosevelt's for volume,
Speaker 1: The Winning of the West, he writes not just about
Speaker 1: Native Americans, but also about slavery, and just a warning,
Speaker 1: this section includes terms that some might find offensive. Slaveholders,
Speaker 1: he wrote, were the worst foes not only of humanity
Speaker 1: and civilization, but especially of the white race in America.
Speaker 1: The Negro, unlike so many of the inferior races, does
Speaker 1: not dwindle away in the presence of the white man.
Speaker 1: He holds his own. Indeed, under the conditions of American slavery,
Speaker 1: he increased faster than the white threatening to supplant him.
Speaker 1: And it gets even worse from there. He actually has
Speaker 1: supplanted him. In certain of the West Indian Islands, where
Speaker 1: the sin of the white and enslaving the black has
Speaker 1: been visited upon the head of the wrong doer by
Speaker 1: his victim with a dramatically terrible completeness of revenge. Slavery
Speaker 1: is ethically abhorrent to all right minded men, that it
Speaker 1: is to be condemned without stint on this ground alone
Speaker 1: from the standpoint of the master cast. It is to
Speaker 1: be condemned even more strongly because it invariably, in the
Speaker 1: end threatens the very existence of that master cast. From
Speaker 1: this point of view, the presence of the negro is
Speaker 1: the real problem. The slavery is merely the worst possible
Speaker 1: method of solving the problem. He opposed slavery because he
Speaker 1: believed that um the way that it evolved in the US,
Speaker 1: it meant that the United States was not created for
Speaker 1: anybody who wasn't white. And so he believed that when
Speaker 1: the British brought brought African slaves to the colonies that
Speaker 1: became the nation, it kind of marked the history of
Speaker 1: the United States in a negative way, because from that
Speaker 1: that point on, black people then had claims to their
Speaker 1: rights and their citizenships in a nation that was by
Speaker 1: and large created for whites. And so he was opposed
Speaker 1: to slavery, not on moral grounds, but really in many
Speaker 1: ways on white sub supremacist grounds. If he believed fundamentally
Speaker 1: that um that slavery was a stain on the Republic
Speaker 1: because the Republic was created for white white men, it
Speaker 1: means that ideas of kind of the West, of Americans
Speaker 1: dominating and teaming the wild West about really ideas of
Speaker 1: manifest destiny, even um those those ideas were created by
Speaker 1: and for whites white men in particular. Did tr ever
Speaker 1: change his views on African American and Native Americans, particularly
Speaker 1: with Native Americans and African Americans, I don't think that
Speaker 1: his his views evolved that that much. Um. While they
Speaker 1: may may have changed for him, that didn't translate into
Speaker 1: meaning political change for people of color. For someone who
Speaker 1: really admires Roosevelt, it can be hard to square these
Speaker 1: views and philosophies with his incredible life and accomplishments. But
Speaker 1: two gloss over this would have left us with a
Speaker 1: two dimensional view of Roosevelt and an incomplete picture of
Speaker 1: our own history. Given the many ways other historians have
Speaker 1: characterized Here's views on race, I asked Edwards how she
Speaker 1: would describe his views. First and foremost, I think he
Speaker 1: believed in white supremacy. I would hesitate to say that
Speaker 1: he's a white supremacist. I think that he harbored and
Speaker 1: articulated and expressed certain white supremacist agendas that translated to
Speaker 1: how he governed as president, particularly on shoes of race.
Speaker 1: Um and Yes. At the same same time, I do
Speaker 1: think that he was a man of his time and
Speaker 1: was influenced by his surroundings. But I also think it's
Speaker 1: important to to evaluate, well, were there people around him
Speaker 1: or were there contemporaries who are expressing more progressive ideas
Speaker 1: on race and race relations, and the answers of resounding yes, right, um,
Speaker 1: he just calling him a racist, I think is the
Speaker 1: easy way out. I think it's more interesting and more
Speaker 1: important to interrogate, well, why and how. It's easy for
Speaker 1: for us to categorize historical figures in binary terms, good
Speaker 1: or bad in terms of our moral perceptions of them.
Speaker 1: But I also think it's it's it's true that you know,
Speaker 1: understanding the time in which in which Roosevelt lives, in
Speaker 1: understanding the ways in which race relations were horrible at
Speaker 1: that that time, is important to understanding who he was
Speaker 1: as the president, who he was as a person, and
Speaker 1: really um, getting a fuller understanding of his so called
Speaker 1: progressivism because he may have been progressive in terms of
Speaker 1: his m his thoughts on the economy, you know, trustbusting,
Speaker 1: he may have been progressive in certain other policy ways,
Speaker 1: but on race, he wasn't. That's an important part of
Speaker 1: understanding our political figures. Right. We live in a country
Speaker 1: that from the very beginning has been polarized along choose
Speaker 1: of race. And so, yes, it is important to understand
Speaker 1: our public figures and political figures perspectives on race because
Speaker 1: it's such an important part in my my mind of
Speaker 1: what it means to be American thinking about these questions,
Speaker 1: because it's an indelible part of the American story. The
Speaker 1: fact that um, he did amazing things for um idealizing
Speaker 1: and realizing the beauty of America's natural landscapes, right or
Speaker 1: four ideas of conservation, that's really important, um. And we
Speaker 1: don't have to denigrate that legacy with his problematic legacy
Speaker 1: on race. And so, you know, I think that I
Speaker 1: think it's important to view historical figures as they were.
Speaker 1: There complex people with complex inner workings of their lives
Speaker 1: and and and it's just important to understand that human complexity.
Speaker 1: And on that note, we'll take a quick break. I
Speaker 1: don't know about you, guys, but I think about alternate
Speaker 1: histories or parallel universe is a lot. This might have
Speaker 1: something to do with my obsession with the TV show Lost,
Speaker 1: but I digress. I've been thinking about them a lot
Speaker 1: during this podcast too. We live in a timeline where
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt became president, but there's probably a timeline out
Speaker 1: there where he was a successful rancher or pursued natural history,
Speaker 1: or perhaps a timeline where he never dropped out of
Speaker 1: law school and instead became a lawyer. In another, he
Speaker 1: was focused on writing, and in another Theodore Roosevelt was
Speaker 1: never even born. So what does the world look like
Speaker 1: in these universes? Our country would have been a lot
Speaker 1: less conservation minded. That's full Shaffroth of the National Park Foundation,
Speaker 1: who notes that in addition to creating wildlife Refugees, which
Speaker 1: protected the nation's wildlife, and greatly expanding the National Forest System,
Speaker 1: which set aside millions of acres for preservation, tier also
Speaker 1: planted the seeds for the National Park Service. President Roosevelt
Speaker 1: really saw these public lands that were being set aside
Speaker 1: for their scientific value. The future was part of his
Speaker 1: motivation for this, and and that I think also very
Speaker 1: forward thinking and recognizing the sort of a place of
Speaker 1: humility I think for him as a human being, see
Speaker 1: that we're just here now, but there's so much we
Speaker 1: need to learn from what happened before to inform how
Speaker 1: we live in the future, which is pretty powerful I think.
Speaker 1: Here's David Hurst Thomas. If you look at presidential actions
Speaker 1: over the last couple of centuries, what Roosevelt did with
Speaker 1: the landscape in wilderness is the most important thing that
Speaker 1: any president did between the Civil War and World War One.
Speaker 1: He was able to take those brief years of his
Speaker 1: presidency from nineteen o one to nineteen o nine and
Speaker 1: make a lasting impression on this country that it's hard
Speaker 1: to even imagine what it would have been like had
Speaker 1: he not done that. But of course, Roosevelt did more
Speaker 1: than just preserve lands. He quite literally changed the international
Speaker 1: landscape by helping to make sure the Panama Canal got built.
Speaker 1: Here's Clay Jenkinson. We would have gotten the canal, that
Speaker 1: it was inevitable that there was going to be a canal,
Speaker 1: States would have almost certainly had to build it. But um,
Speaker 1: you know, there's something like a strong person to cut
Speaker 1: the Guardian nod and cut through all the diplomacy and
Speaker 1: nonsense and b s some the lobbying and so on. It.
Speaker 1: Without tr it probably would have just taken longer, a
Speaker 1: lot longer. There would have been political implications too. If
Speaker 1: tr had never been president. Here's Michael collinan I reckoned
Speaker 1: the Republican Party would have gone on to win elections
Speaker 1: until the Great Depression. There would have never been Woodrow Wilson.
Speaker 1: I think the United States probably would have intervened in
Speaker 1: World War One sooner because the Republicans were much more
Speaker 1: they were more pro allied than Wilson was. I think
Speaker 1: we probably could have had a short World War One.
Speaker 1: And can you imagine if World War One ended sooner
Speaker 1: and the Germans law sooner, it would have been millions
Speaker 1: of lives would have been saved. But yeah, it's it's
Speaker 1: a fun question. If Roosevelt wasn't president, would we have
Speaker 1: all these lands preserved? Like you know, do we have
Speaker 1: national parks the way we have today? I very much
Speaker 1: doubt that. Without his really remarkable ability to push the
Speaker 1: Antiquities Act and then successive executive orders preserving these lands,
Speaker 1: we probably don't have places like the Grand Canyon preserved
Speaker 1: or the vast woodlands of the North Pacific. And there's
Speaker 1: one other big thing that probably wouldn't have happened if
Speaker 1: TR had never been president. Do you think we get
Speaker 1: an FDR without TR? I mean, if we're doing counter
Speaker 1: factuals on FDR, I can probably not. He's got this
Speaker 1: ideological connection to Theodore Roosevelt, and if the Roosevelt hadn't
Speaker 1: been president, I can't imagine how FDR would have developed
Speaker 1: his own his own ideology. And I mean, obviously the
Speaker 1: only reason why he gets to run as vice president
Speaker 1: is because he's got that name. And there's loads of
Speaker 1: evidence about that from the Democratic National Committee saying that
Speaker 1: you know, he's he's okay, but he's got the right name.
Speaker 1: Which one of his accomplishments or policies had the biggest
Speaker 1: positive impact. Well, I don't think it was just conservation
Speaker 1: that was a major positive impact, although that's that's got
Speaker 1: to count as one of the big ones. But I
Speaker 1: think his ability to manage the big businesses and labor
Speaker 1: relations of his time really kicks off the progressive error.
Speaker 1: The capital and labor question was the biggest question of
Speaker 1: his time. It's what defines the Gilded Age. Um it's
Speaker 1: it's it's why we have a progressive error is because
Speaker 1: you know, the role of government is becoming greater and greater,
Speaker 1: and Roosevelt is really the key figure at the helm
Speaker 1: of that movement, even if, of course there's a lot
Speaker 1: of activists and grassroots um movements that are moving in
Speaker 1: the United States towards it. And which of his accomplishments
Speaker 1: or policies do you think had the biggest negative impact.
Speaker 1: I think Roosevelt could have done more for equality, um,
Speaker 1: more for equality of the sexes, and more for equality
Speaker 1: among races. I think having book or ke Washington to
Speaker 1: to the White House for dinner it is a good thing.
Speaker 1: But I think other policies were we're far far worse,
Speaker 1: you know, uh, discriminatory. And I mean that in terms
Speaker 1: of immigration, I mean that in terms of Native Americans.
Speaker 1: I mean that in terms of African Americans. There's a
Speaker 1: lot more than he could have done around inequality on
Speaker 1: the sexes. It's interesting that there's this um cultural feeling
Speaker 1: even within his own family that women really they're not
Speaker 1: It's not that they're not picked to vote, it's just
Speaker 1: the sort of like lingering tradition that women don't vote
Speaker 1: I mean, Roosevelt wrote an undergraduate thesis about women and suffrage,
Speaker 1: and I think actually had progressive views and voices those
Speaker 1: progressive views in nineteen twelve and he's running president, but
Speaker 1: he never really sees these through while he while he's president,
Speaker 1: or you know, when he's you know, planning to when
Speaker 1: he's a Republican. When I suppose he takes on suffrage
Speaker 1: in nineteen twelve because it's politically expedient, it's not something
Speaker 1: that he has this passion bour. And I think one
Speaker 1: of the things that he could have done better we
Speaker 1: would have been to work for greater equality amongst the sexes,
Speaker 1: the races. We live in the timeline where Tier was president,
Speaker 1: where his mug ended up on Mount Rushmore bully for us.
Speaker 1: After visiting that site, I pick up Tyler Klang, one
Speaker 1: of the producers on this podcast, and we drive from
Speaker 1: Rapid City straight up into Madura, North Dakota, where Tire
Speaker 1: retreated after the deaths of his wife and mother. When
Speaker 1: Tire came here from New York, he was clearly an outsider,
Speaker 1: A dude in a buckskin suit with a knife from
Speaker 1: Tiffany in my all black ensemble, I too, feel a
Speaker 1: little bit like a dude. When we roll into Medora.
Speaker 1: Population one D and twelve described Medora for the listening audience,
Speaker 1: Madura is madurable. I would say, show myself out. Um.
Speaker 1: It looks like, you know, your typical little wild West town.
Speaker 1: There's like those storefronts or like the fronts of the
Speaker 1: buildings that are like really flat and and square, and
Speaker 1: there's just like these beautiful buttes rock formations or something.
Speaker 1: I don't know what they're talking to call just like
Speaker 1: around the town. Medora has made much of its association
Speaker 1: with tr Tyler and I are staying in the historic
Speaker 1: wing at the Rough Riders Hotel, which has little teddy
Speaker 1: bears dressed up as rough Riders on the beds. There's
Speaker 1: a statue of Tire as a rough rider, a one
Speaker 1: man tr show starring Joe Wigan, to whose voice you've
Speaker 1: heard in this podcast, and a burger place called the
Speaker 1: Maltese Burger after Tiers Ranch Maltese Cross, and of course,
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt National Park is here with the actual Maltese
Speaker 1: Cross cabin. Roosevelt also plays a role in the Medora musical,
Speaker 1: which is described as the rootness tutinous boots scoutinous show
Speaker 1: in all the Midwest. Before the show, Tyler and I
Speaker 1: attend a cowboy cook out during which steaks are cooked
Speaker 1: on pitchforks. They are literally stacked on pitchforks and stuck
Speaker 1: into a grill, and it is wild. Then we settle
Speaker 1: in for the musical, which is a variety show that
Speaker 1: features Medora's famous and infamous characters with a healthy dose
Speaker 1: of musical theater belting. It is extremely my thing. We
Speaker 1: see trs arrival in Medora and the charge up Kettle
Speaker 1: Hill to the White House. It is here that the
Speaker 1: romance of my life began. I would never have become
Speaker 1: president had it not been for my time spent in
Speaker 1: the West. If he had won one memory of his
Speaker 1: life that he would meet with him, what would it
Speaker 1: be my time? And then the show ends with TR
Speaker 1: belting out a song from the Greatest Showman. Afterwards, we
Speaker 1: chat with Ken Quericone, one of the Burning Hill singers
Speaker 1: who plays tr. Queer Cone has been with the show
Speaker 1: for eight seasons, but has only played Tr since last year.
Speaker 1: We're so lucky to have at presence when he was
Speaker 1: and he was time as a conservationist, as a president,
Speaker 1: so awesome that we had, We had that person that
Speaker 1: loves the land, love the love the people who use.
Speaker 1: Is cool that he used the land properly. Yeah, So
Speaker 1: he is truly one of my favorite presidents for that,
Speaker 1: and it's very humbling and it's awesome that I get
Speaker 1: to do it on stage every night. It's pretty cool.
Speaker 1: We only had a couple of days here in North
Speaker 1: Dakota before we have to turn around and make the
Speaker 1: trek back to the Rapid City Airport. Beyond visiting the
Speaker 1: Elkhorn site, we didn't have time to journey into the park,
Speaker 1: which is a bumber because we're both really really hoping
Speaker 1: to see a bison. We opt against getting up at
Speaker 1: six am to drive through the park and decide instead
Speaker 1: to make a quick stop at the Painted Canyon on
Speaker 1: the way out of town. Maybe I tell Tyler, we'll
Speaker 1: see a bison there. It's hard to describe Painted Canyon,
Speaker 1: but I'm going to try. In some other timeline, it's
Speaker 1: possible that this landscape would be dotted with oil Derrick's
Speaker 1: or a machine means digging out the coal. But in
Speaker 1: this one, the one where theater Roosevelt prioritize saving lands
Speaker 1: like these, there are mounds of various sizes as far
Speaker 1: as the eye can see. The mounds have been worn
Speaker 1: away by erosion to reveal colorful layers. The brown and
Speaker 1: tan layers are sandstone, siltstone, and mudstone. The blue gray
Speaker 1: layers are bent tonite clay a k A the stuff
Speaker 1: that's used in some brands of kitty litter, which was
Speaker 1: created by the ash from volcanic eruptions. Black is a
Speaker 1: layer of coal, and red is clinker, which is created
Speaker 1: when the layers of coal catch fire and cook the
Speaker 1: layer above it. And also a word I will never
Speaker 1: get tired of saying. Some faces of the mountains are
Speaker 1: covered in grass and trees. The sky above is full
Speaker 1: of gray clouds, and I can see distant rain. It
Speaker 1: is breathtaking. We turn around to head back to the car,
Speaker 1: and it's a basis. The bison is across the road
Speaker 1: from the visitor center, head down, grazing on grass, his
Speaker 1: tail flipping away flies. Male bison can wave up to
Speaker 1: two thousand pounds and stand six ft tall, and this
Speaker 1: guy is huge. In Theodore Roosevelt wrote, the extermination of
Speaker 1: the buffalo has been a veritable tragedy of the animal world.
Speaker 1: At that point, less than a thousand of the animals existed.
Speaker 1: Twenty years later, as president, he became one of the
Speaker 1: founding members of the American Bison Society, which used bison
Speaker 1: from the Bronxoo in New York to bolster wild herds.
Speaker 1: The bison we're looking at is a very physical symbol
Speaker 1: of Roosevelt's legacy. So is the undisturbed beauty of the
Speaker 1: Grand Canyon, the Sequoias in Yosemite, the hills of Painted Canyon.
Speaker 1: As I've wrapped up work on this podcast, I've been
Speaker 1: thinking a lot about something Michael Colline and said about
Speaker 1: how we can never really know what t would do
Speaker 1: situations today, or who heats supper politically, or even who
Speaker 1: he really was. The reality is that he's lost to
Speaker 1: the past, and the past is different from history we
Speaker 1: get to make up history. The past is something that
Speaker 1: we can never recreate perfectly, and that is that's a
Speaker 1: good thing. It means that we can learn a lot
Speaker 1: about ourselves through how we understand the past. And it's
Speaker 1: why the Roosevelt legacy is all over the place from
Speaker 1: the nine twenties, because in different generations people remember him differently.
Speaker 1: What do you think is trs ultimate legacy. It's whatever
Speaker 1: we wanted to be Tomorrow, you know, everything might change
Speaker 1: and we might have a completely different view on Roosevelt
Speaker 1: and whatever it is at that moment, is is whatever
Speaker 1: we're interested in. And right now it's about the environment,
Speaker 1: it's about conservation. Twenty years ago it was about um
Speaker 1: about a hero. I mean ed Marris's book comes out,
Speaker 1: I think it's seventy nine, The Rise of the Roosevelt,
Speaker 1: and that was at a time when you know, Watergate
Speaker 1: has happened, Jimmy Carter be very popular. America wanted a hero,
Speaker 1: so Edan Mars provides this book about a hero. I think,
Speaker 1: you know, we don't know what's going to come up
Speaker 1: in the next year, two years, twenty years, but whatever
Speaker 1: does come up, ro Rosalt remains popular and we will
Speaker 1: extract from his legacy what we want. Theotore. Roosevelt's legacy
Speaker 1: might be malleable. We might never be able to really
Speaker 1: know who he was, but standing in these places he
Speaker 1: helped preserve, staring at a species he helped save, maybe
Speaker 1: we can tap into how they made him feel and
Speaker 1: why he felt it was so important to save them,
Speaker 1: and ultimately how lucky we are that he did so.
Speaker 1: This is it the final regular episode of the first
Speaker 1: season of History Versus. I have had so much fun
Speaker 1: making this podcast. This has been my passion project, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't us to me who brought it to life.
Speaker 1: Behind every podcast host is a great team helping to
Speaker 1: make it happen. This project wouldn't have been possible without
Speaker 1: the Mental Flast staff who helped me write scripts as
Speaker 1: well as supplemental TR content on mental flaw dot com
Speaker 1: slash History Versus, or without the support of the people
Speaker 1: at our parent company, Minute Media. And I really couldn't
Speaker 1: have done this without the incredible production team at iHeart Radio,
Speaker 1: who very patiently walked me through this process and made
Speaker 1: these episodes sound so amazing. Finally, I want to thank
Speaker 1: the experts who very generously gave so much of their
Speaker 1: time to this project, and I want to thank you,
Speaker 1: yes you for listening. If you have any questions for
Speaker 1: me about TR or just want to see picks of
Speaker 1: all the TR stuff on my desk, you can find
Speaker 1: me on Twitter at Aaron ce McCarthy. We'll be dropping
Speaker 1: bonus episodes from time to time, and our second season
Speaker 1: will come out later on this year. Until then, Speak
Speaker 1: softly and carry a big stick. History Versus is hosted
Speaker 1: by Me Aeron McCarthy. This episode was written by Me,
Speaker 1: with fact checking by Austin Thompson, field recording by John Mayer.
Speaker 1: Joe Wigan voiced Theodore Roosevelt in this episode. The executive
Speaker 1: producers are Aaron McCarthy, Julie Douglas, and Tyler Clang. The
Speaker 1: supervising producer is Dylan Fagan. The show is edited by
Speaker 1: Dylan Fagan and Loll Berlante. Special thanks to the popes
Speaker 1: Lane Johnson, Sharon Wright, Aretha Wilson, Justine Hill Edwards, Michael Collinane,
Speaker 1: Tyler Caliberta Clay Jenkinson, Will Shaffroth, Marine McGee, Bollinger, and
Speaker 1: David Hurst Thomas. To learn more about this episode and
Speaker 1: Theodore Roosevelt's check out our website at Mental flaws dot com,
Speaker 1: slash History Versus. That's Mental flaws dot com. Slash h
Speaker 1: I S t R y vs. History Versus is a
Speaker 1: production of I Heart Radio and Mental Floss. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcast, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.